MONTREAL – Two more children drowned Thursday in separate Montreal-region incidents, raising the number of drowning deaths in Quebec thus far this year to 44.
A 2-year-old girl, identified in media reports as Marylou Rondeau, was found unconscious at the bottom of her family’s above-ground pool Thursday at about 1:30 p.m. on Bédard St. in St. Rémi, about 35 kilometres southwest of Montreal.
The girl’s parents performed CPR before the arrival of paramedics, who attempted to use a defibrillator on the girl, to no avail.
The mother, 43, was taken to hospital to be treated for shock.
“I can’t say very much,” François Dufault, the girl’s uncle, told the TVA broadcast network.
“It only took one second,” he said, snapping his finger:
“It was that quick.”
He said he heard his sister screaming for someone to call 911.
Investigators from the Sûreté du Québec were trying to determine whether the pool’s fence was in good condition at the time of the accident.
Police were questioning the parents and a family friend who was present when the girl drowned.
At about 3:30 p.m., just two hours later, another 2½-year-old couldn’t be revived after being pulled unconscious from another above-ground pool.
That tragedy, which claimed the life of a boy, took place on des Colibris St. in Ste. Anne des Plaines, in the Laurentians north of Montreal, beyond Blainville.
The two incidents took place four days after an 18-month-old girl drowned, and a week after a 16-month-old girl died in similar circumstances, the latter in Kirkland.
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