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23-month-old girl drowns in front-yard pond

She and her twin were downstairs napping while their mother was upstairs. The girl may have wandered out a back door.

By ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published January 18, 2006

	[Times photo: Stephen J. Coddington]
	Aeromed personnel prepare to take a 23-month-old girl to Shands at the University of Florida in Gainesville on Tuesday. The girl was discovered in a man-made pond in front of her home in Homosassa.

HOMOSASSA - The anguished cries of 23-month-old Gabriella Ullom's family carried across the man-made pond where her body was found and into the street Tuesday afternoon when they learned she had died.

"No, no, no, no," a man's voice called out again and again.

"My baby," a woman yelled.

It was only hours before that Gabriella and her twin sister were safe. The two were napping in a downstairs bedroom in the family's home at 6343 S Lima Ave., just north of Cardinal Street.

The girls' mother, Priscilla Esser, was upstairs with her 4-year-old son and the children's uncle, the family told Citrus County sheriff's investigators. Esser, 24, was washing dishes. The uncle was lying down. The boy was watching television.

Their names and the name of Gabriella's twin sister were not available Tuesday evening. Sheriff's spokeswoman Gail Tierney said Gabriella's grandmother, mother, father, two uncles, twin sister and brother all share the home.

Esser walked downstairs to check on the girls. She noticed the back door was open. It was supposed to be locked, she told investigators, but the 4-year-old boy sometimes opened it. She called for the uncle. He took the back yard, she took the front.

She found her daughter lying face down in a foot of water in the front yard, Tierney said. The pond, which investigators said was about 15 feet long and made of concrete blocks, had no more than a foot of water in it.

Esser scooped her from the pond and carried her to a nearby metal table. She yelled for the uncle and told him to call 911.

Esser forgot for a moment that she had a cell phone in her pocket, Tierney said. When Esser remembered, she, too, called emergency dispatchers. Dispatchers walked her through CPR, Tierney said.

A medical helicopter landed in the parking lot of the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Cardinal Street, and Gabriella was carried onboard on a stretcher. Gabriella was flown to Shands at the University of Florida at 3:26 p.m., Tierney said.

As Gabriella was carried on board, Esser stood off to the side, barefoot, with two victims' advocates.

Esser and other family members waited at the home for word on Gabriella's condition. Several patrol cars arrived at the house, and yellow crime scene tape was stretched across part of the fence near the pond.

Shortly after 4:30 p.m., the hospital called to tell them that Gabriella had been pronounced dead, Tierney said.

The cause of death would not be officially known until an autopsy, Tierney said. She said it was too soon to tell whether there would be any charges in connection with the case.

Abbie VanSickle can be reached at 860-7312 or vansickle@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 18, 2006, 01:10:21]