Ladyville baby drowns in water bucket
It is a tragedy that has become far too familiar: a lethal combination involving a baby and a bucket of water. This weekend the scene of the disaster was Ladyville.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Peaches Angelique Garbutt would have turned two years old in April. But the little girl did not live to celebrate her birthday. Sometime after 1:00 on Saturday Afternoon, Peaches drowned after falling into a bucket of water.
William Garbutt III, Father
“Right before I went to work, she was standing right here on the steps and I going towards my vehicle to get into it and she holler for me. She tell me, “Daddy kiss me.” And I come and I kissed her and I reverse the truck out of the yard and I was looking to drive off and she hollered for me again and she said, “daddy, daddy.” And I stop the truck and I ask her what happen baby? And she waved and she tell me, “bye daddy, bye.” I tell ah, “okay baby, daddy see you.” I drive and I gone dah work. That was the last time I saw my daughter alive.”
According to the child’s mother, Tifara Matthews, she took Peaches inside the house while her older children played in the front yard. Once inside, Matthews says she let go of her daughter’s hand as they walked into the utility room so she could continue with the laundry. But sometime later, when she came out to get a broom, she noticed her daughter was not in the house.
Tifara Matthews, Mother
“I hollered for her. So when I hollered for her, she noh answer. So I know I left her in the house, so I start to look for her. And when I start to look fi she I noh find her nowhere inside the house, so the only place I said I can go and look for she was outside.”
There, just besides the back steps, Matthews saw her daughter slumped over in a bucket half filled with water. The child’s blouse was entangled in a bicycle that was lying on the ground against the plastic container. The family believes Peaches stood on the bike to look into the bucket, but slipped and fell in headfirst.
Tifara Matthews
“So the only thing I could have done was grab her out and start to give her CPR and pump her. Well that nevah mi the help so I screamed and my neighbour come and that is when we tried to rush her to the B.D.F. hospital; try to do everything we could do until BERT could reach. And then they told we it she looks like she wah to breathe on her own, so we had hopes. So when we reach the hospital they said let me stay outside, so when they came they said we tried to do everything we could do. So I tell them, don’t tell me anything more because I know from the time you come and tell me you can’t do anything more, I know she had died.”
Today as William and Tifara try to cope with their grief, they remember their daughter as a child with perhaps too much energy.
William Garbutt III
“Very active, very active. A child that you have to keep your eye on her twenty-four seven, you can’t have enough eyes for that baby. For the same reason we try to keep her close to we, for the same reason we try keep her close to we and like she told you when she wash she takes her downstairs with her, take her back upstairs with her because she is active bad. Whenever you hear her quiet you have to go and check for her because she is in some mischief.”
On Wednesday, Peaches Angelique Garbutt will be buried in Ladyville following services at the Ladyville Baptist Church. Jacqueline Woods for News 5.
