A one-year-old and his brother were allegedly looking for Easter eggs on Sunday morning when the youngest little one accidentally fell into a nearby creek. Tragically, the one-year-old was pulled from the water unconscious and later died in hospital.
Easter egg hunts ends in tragic creek drowning
The two boys, from Paralowie, north of Adelaide, apparently wandered to a nearby park about 300m away from their home during their Easter egg hunt. The youngest child then fell into the Little Para River.
When his parents realised they had wandered off, they rushed out to try and find them. In their panic, they crashed their car into an embankment close to the creek while attempting to find their son.
The little boy was pulled from the water around 930am on Sunday morning. Officers and paramedics arrived at the scene, and CPR was performed before he was “taken to hospital in a critical condition”. Sadly, the little boy passed away in hospital on Monday.
While the details surrounding what exactly happened are still unknown, police will comb through CCTV video to try to determine exactly when and how the children were able to wander off on their own.
Creek usually empty
The creek where the little boy drowned is often dry, but when there has been rain, it can fill up quite quickly. The City of Salisbury said the creek had filled up to about 11 millimetres following three consecutive days of rain.
Our thoughts go out to the family during this absolutely devastating time. This terrible situation acts as a stark reminder for parents to always supervise children and to ensure they are aware of the dangers of water as well as wandering too far from home.
Please consider teaching your child water safety skills and how to be water safe around all bodies of water, even creeks. Children can drown in even the smallest amount of water, such as a creek, a bathtub, or even eskies in the backyard filled with water. As toddlers are often too young to understand these dangers, we need to be constantly supervising them.
The tragic drowning comes just weeks after two toddlers were pulled from their backyard swimming pool in the USA. The 18-month-old twins wandered outside and into the unfenced pool area after their great-grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s accidentally left the back door open.
In December last year, two SA boys also drowned in two separate incidents just three days apart. One boy, under the age of 10, died in a suspected bathtub drowning at a home in the Adelaide suburb of Banksia Park. The other boy – nine-year-old Cyrus Buck drowned at the Waikerie Swimming Centre in South Australia.
For more information on swim safety, check out
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