Firefighter’s daughter critical after pool mishap

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

A six-year-old girl is fight­ing for her life af­ter be­ing found un­re­spon­sive in a pool at a chil­dren’s recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ty in Gas­par­il­lo on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

Po­lice said the in­ci­dent oc­curred around 1:20 pm at Bumper Jumperz Fun Park along Morash Av­enue, Bonne Aven­ture.

Of­fi­cers from the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion re­spond­ed af­ter re­ports of a child in dis­tress.

When of­fi­cers ar­rived, they met the child’s par­ents, De­sire Wal­ters, a 41-year-old fire­fight­er, and Shel­don Gabriel, a 41-year-old fire safe­ty of­fi­cer at­tached to Savonet­ta, Cou­va.

The cou­ple told po­lice their daugh­ter, Sky­lar Gabriel, had been in a pool with oth­er chil­dren when she was dis­cov­ered un­re­spon­sive.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors were told the child was bathing in a small pool on the south­ern side of the com­pound when the in­ci­dent oc­curred. Pa­trons at the fa­cil­i­ty re­moved her from the wa­ter and con­tact­ed Emer­gency Health Ser­vices.

Emer­gency Health Ser­vices per­son­nel ar­rived short­ly af­ter and re­port­ed­ly de­tect­ed signs of life be­fore rush­ing the child to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. She was ad­mit­ted to the In­ten­sive Care Unit, where she re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

Po­lice said a med­ical re­port has been re­quest­ed as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.