Pennsylvania toddler brothers, Hayden and Hunter Smith, aged 1 & 3 – drown after making their way outside home and into swimming pool.
A community is in mourning after two toddler bothers, aged 1 and 3 drowned Wednesday night in an above ground swimming pool in Pennsylvania‘s Fayette County.
Hunter George Smith, 3, and Hayden Lewis Smith, 1, were pulled out of the pool in the backyard of their family’s home on Whiteman Avenue in Uniontown at around 7:20 p.m.
Rescuers were called to the home and tried to resuscitate the toddlers on scene and en route to Uniontown Hospital, but they were pronounced dead there.
The boys’ aunt, Debbie Smith, 46, who has custody of the children, told KDKA that the boys were in the care of two teenage relatives when the incident happened, while she was at work.
Their 16-year-old aunt, Abbie Smith, had returned from high school band camp and given the boys a bath to prepare them for bed.
The grandmother said the children got outside the house, walked around the above-ground pool, up the steps and then fell in, WTAE reported.
Authorities are investigating how the boys managed to make their way out of the house and making their way up in the pool.
Drowning is the leading cause of death for children between 1 and 4 years old among preventable injuries:
The grandmother told the Pittsburg Tribune-Revue that their grandfather, Franklin Hough, and aunt Hannah Smith, were the ones to retrieve the kids from the water.
‘Frankie had him on the table doing CPR,’ Smith said. ‘Frankie jumped in the pool, clothes and all.’
‘I ran. I ran. And then I saw Hunter laying on the table,’ the teenage aunt told the Tribune-Review.
The grandmother described the boys were ‘curious Georges. And when you have two boys together, look out. I mean they were 1 and 3. Curious, very curious’.
Hunter and Hayden enjoyed playing with toys, eating and watching Spider-Man and Batman, their 16-year-old aunt said.
They were reportedly close and always gave each other hugs.
The family threw the elder sibling a Spider-Man themed party on June 3. Hunter was set to start Head Start of Fayette County in August, and was excited about riding the school bus.
Drowning is the leading cause of death for children between 1 and 4 years old among preventable injuries, according to the nonprofit Safe Kids Worldwide, with around 1,000 children drowning each year. The National Safety Council added that most drowning deaths are due to falling into a pool or being left alone in a bathtub.
Some 57 percent of drownings occur in pools, with 70% of tragedies occurring between the months of May and September. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted between 2005 and 2014, there were more than 3,535 drownings annually in the U.S.
