Tragedy: A two-year-old Haredi toddler drowned in his home in Kiryat Gat

July 17, 2014   

The moment of fun turned into tragedy: Rescue teams were called this morning (Wednesday) to treat a two-year-old toddler, a member of a Belza Hasidim family, who drowned in a small home pool placed on the balcony of his home on Beit Yosef Street in Kiryat Gat. The call came in around 9:30 a.m. Rescue teams arrived at the scene and found the child unconscious, without a pulse or breathing. Volunteer paramedics from the Kiryat Gat branch of United Hatzalah performed advanced and prolonged CPR on him, until an intensive care unit arrived, who performed advanced CPR on him. Haim Matzliah, a volunteer with Ihud Hatzalah in Kiryat Gat, said: "When I arrived at the scene, the child was unconscious after drowning in a children's pool on the balcony of the house. I and other paramedics performed CPR on him, and then he was evacuated in an MDA intensive care unit to continue receiving medical treatment at the hospital, with his condition being described as serious.". The toddler was taken to the hospital in serious condition, and after resuscitation efforts, doctors were forced to declare him dead.