A 16-year-old boy has drowned at a city pool in Houston's Fifth Ward, prompting a police investigation and expressions of grief from local residents. The incident occurred on Saturday afternoon at the Tuffly Park pool located at 3200 Russell Street, which had been closed to the public since Labor Day weekend. According to ABC13, the teen allegedly scaled the fence surrounding a closed City of Houston facility and entered the water via the pool's slide.
After going down the slide, the boy remained submerged in what was reported as eight or nine feet of water and did not resurface. Witnesses at the scene described frantic efforts to rescue the teen. "I saw the ambulance here. They already had him out of the pool, and they were just like, pumping his chest," Rosa Loredo, a long-time Fifth Ward resident told FOX 26 Houston. Loredo also shared details of a petite young girl who attempted to pull the boy from the water but found him too heavy to manage. An unnamed bystander then reportedly removed his shirt, jumped the gate, and pulled the teenager out.
The boy was transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital in critical condition but did not survive. The Houston police and the mayor's office are currently looking into the circumstances surrounding the drowning. "One guy was hollering hysterically, and then they said the person had died," Mario Gambino, another Fifth Ward resident, recounted in a FOX 26 Houston interview.
Edmond Bell, a resident in the Fifth Ward, suggested an urgent need for vigilance: "Honestly, people just need to keep an eye on their kids and keep track of what they are doing," he told FOX 26 Houston.
