15-month-old is found in pool

No one noticed the toddler was missing, according to the Sheriff's Office.

By JAMAL THALJI, Times staff Writer
Published August 19, 2007

BAYONET POINT - For the folks on Weather Stone Row, the first sign of what happened Saturday morning was a "bloodcurdling" scream.

Next came the emergency lights and sirens.

Then a firefighter rushed out of the house at 12402 Weather Stone Row carrying a pale, limp 15-month-old boy in his right arm while applying chest compressions with his left.

The toddler had been found in a pool there, according to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, but he wasn't breathing when he was pulled out.

"It was desperately sad to see a child potentially drowned," said neighbor Patty Fitzgerald.

The boy and his family were not identified by the Sheriff's Office on Saturday. The child's condition was also not disclosed.

Deputies received the call at 10:21 a.m., according to sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll, but the agency released few details.

The Beacon Woods home is owned by John Robert Diem, according to county property records. Neighbors say a woman he has been dating had her three grandsons over.

The older children had been swimming in the pool earlier that morning, according to the Sheriff's Office, then got out of the pool.

But a door leading to the patio was left open, according to the Sheriff's Office. That's how deputies believe the boy got outside.

"No one noticed the child missing for a couple of minutes," Doll said. "When the child was found he wasn't breathing."

Neighbors heard a woman's anguished screams from the back of the house. Then they heard her cries out front, as she called to tell others what had happened.

"She was terrorized," said neighbor Steve Fitzgerald. "She was extremely distraught."

The boy was taken to Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point. The incident was still under investigation Saturday.

By 4 p.m. the crime scene tape was down, the sheriff's vehicles were gone and no one was home.

The white house sits on almost an acre along Bear Creek River. An old swing set sits in the tall grass out back. It has a screened-in patio but no child-proof fence around the pool.

The home was built in 1977, according to property records, exempting it from a 2000 law requiring safety devices aimed at preventing child drownings for new residential pools.

The child's family could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Jamal Thalji can be reached at 727 869-6236 or thalji@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 19, 2007, 01:27:30]