The parents of a five-year-old boy who drowned in a retention pond in Calgary’s northeast are speaking out.
On Saturday, the couple said a frantic search started around 4 p.m. Friday afternoon after their son Raheel Uddin disappeared.
“He would not leave the house without me or without the brothers, he wanted all of us together all the time,” Raheel’s mother Rozina Uddin said.
Raheel was pulled from a Saddle Ridge retention pond by a witness around 5:15 p.m. on Friday.
He was rushed to the Peter Lougheed Centre in critical, life-threatening condition but later died.
Raheel’s parents said he had autism spectrum disorder.
They now want more to be done to protect other children around open water.
“I want the city to take care of all of the ponds, so it will be safe,” Raheel’s father Mohamed Rashid said.
With files from Heide Pearson and Michael King