Details on the Drowning of Toddler in Southern Belize

Wilfredo Ferrufino

A baby girl drowned in a pit of water in Bella Vista Village on Tuesday. Police responded to the drowning sometime around one-thirty that afternoon when a woman reported that she noticed her three-year-old daughter Abigail Umana was missing. She searched the nearby yard and found the baby lying in the hole with water.  The baby was taken to the polyclinic in the village, but was pronounced dead on arrival. Inspector Wilfredo Feruffino gives us the details of the tragic incident:

Insp. Wilfredo Ferrufino, C.I.B., Eastern Division

“Police from the Intermediate Southern Formation responded to a drowning in Bella Vista Village. Upon arrival, they spoke to one Rosa Cisneros, a twenty-four-year-old Salvadoran national of Bella Vista, who reported that around one p.m. she was at home when she noticed that her three-year-old daughter was missing, that is Abigail Elizabeth Umana. Upon making checks in the area and in her neighbor’s yard, she discovered her baby floating in a well about three feet deep in water. She retrieved the child and still had a heart-beat, according to the mother, and she made efforts to give the child CPR and from there she transported the child to the polyclinic in Bella Vista. Police are investigating the matter and we will have an update as soon as that is done.    What I can confirm is that yes she was taken to the Bella Vista Clinic and then transported to the Independence Poly Clinic but I don’t have any information that there were no medical personnel out there at the Bella Vista Clinic.”