Bengaluru, April 11: A routine swim in his Sarjapur Road apartment swimming pool on Thursday turned tragic for 11-year-old Siddharth, who lost his life after a suction duct in the pool sucked his hand preventing him from swimming out. Efforts by his friends who were swimming with him and later by some adult residents of the upscale Purva Sunshine apartment were all futile.
Siddharth, whose parents Jayaprakash (a software engineer) and Preethi Nambiar (a private school teacher), were at work as he struggled under water for some time. He died by the time the fire department personnel reached.
According to police, “Siddharth’s hand was sucked in by the duct. His friends swimming with him alerted people in the apartment. Other residents of the apartment too could not save him, even as they tried to drain the pool completely.” He was pulled out only after about 30 minutes. The deepest point in the pool is 6ft. The resident welfare association president Varadarajan said: “The spot at which he died was about 4.5 ft deep.”
According to neighbours, the incident happened between 1.30pm and 2.30pm and the boy was accompanied by his grandfather. “When we saw the fire tenders near the pool we initially thought it was a mock drill. But we soon realized it was an accident when we saw the boy’s body at the bottom of the pool,” one of them said. Efforts by TOI to enter the apartment remained unsuccessful. Another neighbour said that the friends had tried to extricate Siddharth’s hand. Residents aid that the pool was opened only during summer. “One of the guards used to be there to oversee the kids but unfortunately on Thursday there was none around. The RWA has now dried the pool and closed it,” one of them said. However, another resident said the guard tried to help. About 30 residents, mostly women, also tried to empty the pool with buckets.
“The boy was taken out only after the fire personnel came in. Efforts to give him artificial respiration provided some hope after with some signs of breathing being witnessed,” the person said, adding that Siddharth eventually could not be saved.
“We received the call around 2.50pm and we rushed two fire tenders to the spot used for pumping water out of the swimming pool,” a fire control room official told TOI.
According to officers, the pool was 40X20 in measurement and over 5 feet deep. “Our vehicles initially sucked the water out of the pool and then used a hydraulic spreader, we removed the body from the water, but by then it was too late. By 4.30pm, we returned to our unit,” an officer said.
