BABCOCK RANCH, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Charlotte County deputies responded to a child drowning incident in the Babcock Ranch community Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office deputies, along with Fire and EMS, responded to the incident. The sheriff’s office confirmed there is an active investigation underway.<\/p>\n
WINK News anchor Jillian Haggerty spoke with a family member, who said the child is doing OK.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ashley Turner with Charlotte County Fire & EMS released a statement on water safety following the incident. “Sadly, drowning can happen quickly and often without warning,” Turner said.<\/p>\n
“In a community like Charlotte County, where we are surrounded by pools, canals, rivers, and the Gulf, water safety is something we all need to take seriously.”<\/p>\n
Charlotte County Fire & EMS encourages everyone to practice simple but lifesaving water safety habits. Never leave children unattended around water, even for a moment.<\/p>\n
Designate a responsible adult as a dedicated water watcher and avoid distractions like phones. Drowning is often silent, and strong swimmers can also find themselves in trouble due to fatigue, medical emergencies or unexpected conditions.<\/p>\n
Wearing a life jacket during boating or other water activities is always encouraged. For homeowners, layers of protection such as pool barriers, self-closing and self-latching gates, door alarms and pool alarms can help prevent tragedies.<\/p>\n
“We also encourage families to enroll children in age-appropriate swim lessons and learn CPR, because immediate bystander action can make a critical difference before first responders arrive,” Turner said. “As we continue through the summer, we ask everyone to remain vigilant around the water.”<\/p>\n
A few simple precautions can help prevent a tragedy and save a life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BABCOCK RANCH, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Charlotte County deputies responded to a child drowning incident in the Babcock Ranch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,853,7215],"class_list":["post-353203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte-county","tag-charlotte-county-sheriff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}