MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A child is dead after he was found unresponsive in a pool.
It happened in the 3000 block of Mt. Moriah Trails at the Trails at Mt. Moriah Apartments Sunday evening.
Police cars and crime tape filled the front of the apartment complex after a 5-year-old boy was found not breathing near the pool.
“I was panicking too,” Marnicia Moton, who lives in the complex, said. “I was kind of tearing up like I was nervous. I ain’t know what to do. I was shaking. I was scared.”
Moton was there when everything happened around 4:30 p.m.
She said there were no lifeguards or adults at the pool.
“We looked over, she was getting her little brother out the pool,” Moton recalled. “He was throwing up and everything.”
According to witnesses, the 5-year-old was with his older sister and their mother showed up after a call for help.
Paramedics rushed the little boy to Baptist East Hospital where he later died.
“I guess he didn’t know how to swim. I guess he kept on jumping in the water, and I guess too much water was getting in,” Moton said.
Last weekend, Cedric Walton died after jumping into a locked pool on Orleans.
Community leaders said more needs to be done to make sure young minorities know how to swim.
“This is a problem in our community, and I think our local politicians need to step up and recognize that this is one of the many problems with the youth,” Alvin Crook said.
Sunday night, neighbors were asking why an adult was not watching the boy.