A preventable drowning death? Ava Rose McCourt, 9 year old Tiffin, Ohio girl drowns while learning to swim in pool full of adults & children after ‘suddenly vanishing’ from view.
A 9 year old girl drowned in a pool full of people after her father’s fiancée looked away from her for ‘just a moment.’
Ava Rose McCourt, 9, disappeared from view in the pool of the Clinton Mobile Home Resort in Tiffin, Ohio, on June 28, never to be seen alive again when she was later discovered ‘floating on a pool noodle.’
The child had been using a pool noodle to keep her afloat that day amid ongoing swimming lessons.
Was a 9 year old girl’s drowning death preventable?
Her soon-to-be-stepmother Christina Bryant told police she had been teaching the girl how to swim when she seemingly vanished in the pool full of adults and other children.
Bryant recalled desperately looking for the missing child, leading to other pool users also ‘frantically’ looking for the missing girl.
Another child found her ‘lying on the bottom of the pool in the deep end’ as a bystander gave her CPR until paramedics arrived, according to a police report cited by WILX.
It is believed Bryant was not in the water with the child while teaching the young girl how to swim.
Ava’s father, Jesse McCourt, was fishing in the trailer park’s lake that was next to the pool when Ava disappeared.
The 9 year old was rushed to Mercy Tiffin Hospital and pronounced dead shortly after. The Lucas County Coroner’s Office will conduct an autopsy.
Witnesses told police Ava disappeared under the water in an instant without anyone noticing, or with any splashing or sounds of distress.
One said it was as fast as you could snap your fingers – one minute she was there, the she was gone the dailymail reported.
Bryant told police she started teaching Ava to swim several days before she drowned, but she wasn’t yet able to swim on her own.
Police said ‘the investigation is over’ and no charges would be filed.
Ava was buried on July 3 after a funeral in Green Springs, Ohio.
‘Ava loved life and enjoyed singing, dancing, laughing and giving hugs. She was a very kind girl and loved to spend time with her family and shopping,’ her obituary read.
