Tribune Staff Reports

A 1-year-old child pulled from a swimming pool Sunday evening at a home in the 600 block of West Second Street in Seymour remains hospitalized in stable condition at an Indianapolis hospital.

The incident, reported at 8 p.m., began when the child was able to leave home through a back door that had not been shut and fell into the pool, according to a report from the Seymour Police Department.

Sgt. Brandon White and Officer Seth Sage were at a nearby residence when they heard a woman start screaming a few homes away.

They went to that home and found a 1-year-old child not breathing, Police Chief Bill Abbott said.

White immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the child and continued it while Sage drove them to Schneck Medical Center in Seymour for advanced treatment. The child later was transferred to Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health in Indianapolis for additional care.

Abbott said it was fortunate that White and Sage were nearby at the time of the near drowning. Two other pieces of luck are that White is the department’s CPR training officer and Sage still holds his emergency medical technician certification he had when he worked for Jackson County Emergency Medical Services.

As part of the investigation into the incident, officers learned other children had been playing behind the residence, and the back door had been inadvertently left open, allowing the child to leave the home and fall into a small above-ground pool.