Plymouth Township Toddler Drowns After Fall in Backyard Swimming Pool

A Plymouth Township toddler drowned after falling into a backyard pool on Sunday morning.

The Plymouth Community Fire Department received the call at 10:59 a.m., and when they arrived, the 2-year-old boy was unconscious and unresponsive and being given CPR.

Fire department crews took over CPR and administered advanced life procedures protocols and transported the boy to St. Mary's Hospital where they continued working on the boy before he was pronounced dead by an emergency room doctor, according to Fire Chief Mark Wendel. 

Wendel said he did not know how the boy came to fall in the pool or how long he was under water, and that police were investigating the tragedy. 

Wendel said that anytime there is a situation like this, counseling is made available for the responding crews if they choose to use it, but he has not had a request from anybody for the service.

"They are obviously quite upset, anytime you have a small child like this involved in a tragedy like this, it's very disconcerting and it's something, quite frankly, they'll carry around (with them) the rest of their careers," he said. 

Wendel said he wanted to remind the public of the job that first responders like police, fire and EMS do every day. 

"More times than not people don't realize these types of things happen on a routine basis, I'm not necessarily talking about a 2-year-old drowning or anything like that, but these are things we deal with - these are things we keep dealing with," Wendel said. "We shove them to the side and keep going forward and trying to do our job. But these types of things do take a toll on individuals after a while. We're not super humans, but we try to do the best job we can. I think a lot of credit should be given to the people who do this job, have been doing it for years and I just think they should be recognized for the service they do provide to our community."