Unattended baby drowns in bucket on Faber’s Road
Every time it happens, people ask: where were the parents? This time the mother was at work when her baby fell into a bucket of water and drowned. News Five was on Faber’s Road today to find out who was supposed to be watching the baby.
Baby Eric Castillo is believed to have drowned when he fell into a bucket partially filled with water, which was left on a kitchen table. The incident occurred inside the child’s home at number twenty-two A Faber’s Road. According to neighbors, around six thirty a.m. Carla Martinez had asked a next door neighbor Margaret Swaso to keep an eye on her two children, ages one and a half and three, until her sister-in-law Denise Whylie came home. But Whylie didn’t arrive until eight forty-five and by then it was too late.
Edward Logan, Teacher, Excelsior High School
“My impression is that the person who discovered the child had just gone into the house. And from what I understand her to be saying, because she was rather hysterical, is that she saw the foot of the baby showing from out of the bucket and she immediately brought him out. But she was hysterical when she brought him out.”
Stephanie Belisle, a next door neighbor, said she heard Whylie scream and ran to help.
Stephanie Belisle, Neighbor
“So I run downstairs and I ask her, “what, what”. She say the baby in a bucket of water drowned. So I run and I grab the baby from her and I start to give the baby CPR. When I done give him, I no see no heartbeat, no pulse.”
Edward Logan, who teaches next door at Excelsior High School and came to the women’s assistance, says he believes the baby had been in the bucket for some time.
Edward Logan
“He was very limp, had no life, no signs of life and when we got there he was all soaked and he wasn’t moving or anything. And we tried to administer CPR but the only thing that happen was he brought up some mucous, some water.
From the amount of water that he brought up and the sound of his chest when we try to administer CPR, I would say he had a lot of water in his lungs.”
Baby Castillo was rushed to K.H.M.H. but there was nothing the doctors could do.
Stephanie Belisle
“All the doctors went into the room to see the baby. About half an hour after that the mother come and when the mother come, I say girl we find the baby in a bucket of water and I told her you
can’t go see the baby right now because the doctors are with the baby. About nine thirty the doctors came out and said they can’t do anything, the baby dead.”
Neighbors tell News Five that no adult was present in the house at the time and that Margaret Swaso only came across to the house once. When she saw that everything was okay she went home.
Police have questioned the child’s mother, the neighbor and the sister-in-law, but no arrests have been made. Police say they will forward their findings to the Director of Public Prosecutions who will decide what, if any, action will be taken. The various agencies that deal with children in Belize continue to advise working parents to use established day care centers or leave their children in the care of a responsible adult.
