Twin toddlers drown after bees attack mom in Arizona

YUMA, Ariz. - Twin 18-month-old boys were pronounced dead at a hospital after being pulled from an Arizona canal, police said Saturday.

CBS affiliate KSWT in Yuma reports the mom was attacked by bees while jogging with her sons in a stroller. They say all three fell into the water and the stroller sank. The mom was rescued, but rescuers struggled to find the stroller.

While officials have not identified the victims, a family friend told KSWT they are from the Keslar family of Yuma.

Police officers and the fire department were called to a neighborhood on Yuma's east side at 9:45 a.m. Friday to help find two people who fell in a canal, police spokesman officer Joe Franklin said. After a search that lasted more than an hour, the brothers were pulled from the water.

They were flown by a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter to a Yuma hospital, where they were pronounced dead, Franklin said.

Detectives investigating the case believe the boys ended up in the canal by accident and don't suspect foul play, Franklin said. The area along the canal is used by families for walks and by joggers and a family member was nearby when the boys ended up in the water.

Franklin would not provide details of the events that led up to the toddlers ending up in the canal.

Yuma Fire Department spokesman Mike Erfert said their crews were called out on a possible drowning. Helicopters from U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Air and Marine and the Marine Corps also flew over the canal searching for the boys.

The CBP helicopter crew spotted the brothers in the water and they were pulled out at about 11:20 a.m. Erfert said paramedics began immediate life-saving efforts and the boys were quickly loaded onto the Marine Corps helicopter for the trip to the hospital.

A family friend, Marlene Gleim, has set up a crowdfunding page for the family. She told KSWT the money will be used to pay for a memorial and medical costs. It had raised more than $20,000 as of Tuesday morning.