Two three-year-old boys – one of them English – drowned in separate tragedies in Portugal last weekend. One drowned on holiday with his family in Óbidos, the other in Lagos.The first desperately sad incident happened to a Portuguese child in Albardeira, Lagos.
Details of how the little boy came to be found motionless in a private swimming pool are sketchy.
All that is known is that INEM emergency services were called to the scene after the child was found at 5.30pm on Saturday – a day with record temperatures – but that they were unable to save him.
Reanimation efforts went on throughout the mercy dash to Portimão Hospital where the little boy was declared dead shortly after arrival.
In Óbidos, tragedy is all the more poignant as the boy’s family were all in the pool with him when he drowned, writes Correio de Manhã.
The child’s mother had left the water to fetch a towel, while her toddler son remained behind with his father and sisters.
When the mother returned to the edge of the pool, the father “was already trying to reanimate the little boy, with his sisters in states of shocks”, writes CM.
What happened exactly is not explained.
Due to have returned to England on Sunday, CM wrote that the devastated family remained in the Praia d’El Rey resort, receiving psychiatric support.
Firemen, the resort’s security staff and INEM rescue services had all worked desperately to save the toddler.
