05. 07. 10. - 17:00
Twin girls drowned
Parents are being urged to take extra care with children around water after four children died in less than a week in Germany and Austria.
The most recent incident happened over the weekend when identical twin girls just 16 months old drowned in a garden pond after their parents let them visit their grandmother for the day.
Police said the gran had been drinking at the house at Broock in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany and had not properly checked on the children until it was too late. They were taken by emergency helicopter to hospital where they were declared dead on arrival.
Another German boy aged three died after falling into a hotel pool in Schladming in Austria. The boy's mother aged 34 pulled his lifeless body from the pool - but by then it was too late.
And at the end of last week an Upper Austrian girl drowned in a backyard swimming pool just two days before her fourth birthday. Police in Grieskirchen said the child had taken off her water wings when her mother popped into the kitchen, leaving her alone.
The 36-year-old mum returned to find her child’s motionless body floating in the small pool.
Paramedics tried to resuscitate the girl for around half an hour.
And a baby boy almost drowned in his bath also at the end of last week after being left unattended by his mother.
The 26-year-old mum from Buermoos, Austria, later told paramedics she had left her child to splash around in the water, which was something she said he enjoyed.
But when she returned to the bathroom a few minutes later she found the eight-month-old boy lying unconscious in the water.
A team of paramedics and a local doctor managed to resuscitate the boy who was taken the Children’s Hospital in Salzburg where he is currently recovering.