A 4-year-old girl died from drowning in a Comfort Inn pool in Ohio, police said.
The death in Wheelersburg occurred on Sunday afternoon.
The victim, later identified as Abby Ruby, was rushed to the Southern Ohio Medical Center but pronounced dead shortly after arrival.
Sheriff’s deputies told 10TV that Abby was playing in the motel’s pool with other children as parents socialized, when her mother noticed she had disappeared.
Another parent discovered Abby on the bottom of the five-feet-deep pool and brought her to the surface and performed CPR.
Sheriff Marty Donini called the death a “terrible tragedy,” but said the preliminary investigation indicated it was accidental.
“There were maybe four kids and six adults. I guess they were all swimming and there were not any problems, eventually someone noticed the female child missing. They saw the female at the bottom of the pool, one of the bystanders jumped in and brought the child to the surface,” Donini told the Portsmouth Daily Times.
“When we showed up, the child was there unresponsive, bystanders were doing CPR. The squad showed up and transported the child, and a little after 4 p.m., the hospital declared the four-year-old child deceased.”
