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| Toddler Falls Into Lake |
A 65-year-old man walking his 2-year-old grandson on Lake Michigan in the Lincoln park neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago near Belmont Harbor on Friday afternoon sat down on a bench to take a rest. He left the 2 year old strapped into his stroller.
Strong gusts of wind that day blew the stroller into the water. The grandfather dove into the water but was unable to reach the boy in 10 to 12 feet of water. He began yelling "boy" and "child" according to witnesses and frantically looking for the child. Reports say the man did not speak much English.
Chicago Firefighters arriving at the scene after onlookers called 911 found the boy and pulled him, still strapped into the stroller, from the zero-visibility water after 15 minutes of searching. ACB7 TV in Chicago reported that the boy was not moving when pulled from the water. The grandfather, "Was just moaning in the breakwater, crying," John Dersheid, a witness who called 911, told CNN.
Awaiting EMS took the child to Children's Memorial Hospital where the child was listed in critical condition on Friday. The grandfather, taken to St. Joseph's, is said to be in serious condition.
By Sunday, the child's condition was said to be improving. "The last I'm hearing from his father is that he's doing better still," Anvar Teparic, a family friend, told the Chicago Sun-Times.
A man who identified himself as the boy's father said, "I think he will be OK. I hope so. We are praying."
The National Safety Council says that, annually, about 5,000 children under 15 are hospitalized due to drowning-related accidents. Twenty percent of those have permanent and severe neurological damage and 15 percent die in the hospital.
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