Shocking video shows mum texting while daughter appears to be drowning
This is the moment a texting mother ignores her drowning toddler for more than 90 seconds, as she desperately struggles in a children’s pool, on her first birthday.
The distressing footage shows the mum brushing away the girl’s attempts for attention, turning away from the pool to continue using her phone.
The toddler Xiao Ai has been in a coma since the July 31 tragedy, on the day of her first birthday, relying on a breathing apparatus to stay alive.
She had been brought to children’s swimming pool Beibei Lamu, in Cangshan district in Fuzhou, capital of East China’s Fujian province, and she was still being watched by her mum just seconds before the accident happened.
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CCTV footage from the pool shows the mother playing with a boy when she turns away to use her mobile phone.
Xiao Ai immediately flips upside down in the pool and slips out of the swim ring, struggling in the water just a few metres from her clueless parent.
The boy in the pool tries to save the girl by reaching his hands towards her and trying to put the swim ring above her on the pool surface, but he cannot help her.
He then tries to warn the child’s mother, with the video showing him making his way to the edge of the pool and trying to get her attention. However, the annoyed parent waves him away, leaving him helpless to save his playmate.
More than 90 seconds after Xiao Ai had flipped upside down, the boy finally gets the mum’s attention, and she sprints over to pluck her daughter out the water.
The mother, identified only as Ms Wu, said she tried basic chest compressions on her daughter then rushed her to the Fujian Provincial Hospital for treatment.
Emergency department doctor Lin Shuqin said the child arrived without a heartbeat or breath sounds. Her face had also turned purple.
– Australscope
