Pomeroon toddler drowns in trench

A Tenez Ferme, Lower Pomeroon River family is mourning the death of a 14-month-old who drowned in a trench close to the home.

According to reports, at around 2 pm on Sunday, Alana John, the mother of Jeffrey Daniels, left him sleeping and went to use the toilet some 200 yards away from the house.

She said that she was there for about two minutes and then went back to the house to check on the baby and noticed that he was not there. She added that she asked her two other children who are four and two years old if they had seen the baby and they said no.

John and her sister immediately conducted a search and ten minutes later the boy was seen facedown floating in the trench.

John’s sister rushed and took him out and performed artificial respiration, however, John said the baby appeared to be dead.

He was rushed to the Oscar Joseph District Hospital at Charity, Essequibo Coast and was pronounced dead on arrival by a doctor.

The body is in the mortuary at the hospital, awaiting a post-mortem examination. It is unclear how the child got into the trench.