Child At Westgate Lakes Resort Nearly Drowns in Pool

By Orlando Personal Injury Attorney on April 4, 2018

On the first of April, a family vacationing at the popular Westgate Lakes Resort in Orlando had a terrifying brush with mortality when their young child nearly drowned in one of the resort’s swimming pools. A report from the Orange County Fire Rescue provide the public with the most comprehensive details on the situation, although there is still a hefty investigation underway into just what happened to cause the incident to take place at all.

What we do know is that a 5-year-old child was staying at the Westgate Lakes Resort with their parents when it entered one of the resort’s pools. It is not known if the child was in the company of their parents at the time they entered the pool or if the parents had for some reason allowed them to swim on their own. At the time that the child entered the water they were wearing a life jacket, but somehow the child then managed to wriggle out of the jacket, at which point they plunged to the pool’s bottom.

It is not clear if the parents saw this all take place or if they only became aware of their child’s absence after the fact. We do know that the child was not submerged for an excessive period of time and that this is thanks to the quick thinking and acting of one of the resort’s other guests, an individual who was not named in the report.

This guest, seeing that the child was unable to swim up to the surface, dove to the bottom, retrieved the child, and returned them to the pool’s edge. The child was then reunited with its family.

Someone—it is not clear if it was the child’s parents or a member of the resort staff—called 9-1-1 and members of the Orange County Fire Rescue arrived on the scene shortly afterwards. In the conclusion of their report, they indicated that at no point during the ordeal did the child lose consciousness. The child was taken to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, but the Orange County Fire Rescue made sure to say that this hospital visit was nothing more than a precaution.

James O. Cunningham

Since 1977, personal injury lawyer James Cunningham has provided effective legal advocacy to people who are injured through the negligent actions of another person or entity throughout the Central Florida area. He fights to obtain recoveries for his clients’ physical and emotional pain and suffering and pursues his clients’ personal injury cases with a commitment to excellence and impeccable preparation.