Florida Child Injury Law Blog

One of the most difficult things to report on is the preventable death of a young child. But if our reporting these tragic accidents can alert families, relatives, and caregivers to the dangers and increase everyone’s vigilance when children are present, we will have performed a useful service.

A release from Associated Press reports that a toddler, 2-year-old Mark Andrew Van Cott, drowned Thursday evening in a lake bordering the backyard of his grandparents’ home in a St. Petersburg’s Brighton Bay area.

The toddler was playing inside the house while his grandparents were preparing dinner. They suddenly noticed he was no longer around and began searching the house for him.

The child’s grandfather then went to search the back yard and saw him lying face down in the lake near the shore. He pulled the little boy from the water and began CPR, which was continued until paramedics arrived.

The young child had apparently gotten out of the house through an open sliding glass door leading to a screened in back porch, and then got out through a screen door that was not secured. The lake is about 60 feet from the house.

The family said that he was not out of sight for more the five minutes before being found in the lake.

Drowning is the number one cause of death in children under 5 in Florida. These tragic child deaths can be prevented by making certain that all doors that could give a child access to water are properly secured, and ensuring that an adult is assigned to keep a watchful eye on a child who is playing anywhere in the vicinity of water.