Survivor of pool accident still critical

By AMELIA DAVIS and DEBORAH O'NEIL

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 19, 2000

SAFETY HARBOR -- Jonathan Gaudette heard the commotion outside his Bayshore Palms apartment.

[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford] David Lewis III, 2, drowned in this pool at Bayshore Palms Apartments and Homes in Safety Harbor.

Looking out his window late Monday afternoon, he saw two youngsters running around the swimming pool, shouting and screaming for help.

As he headed for the door, Gaudette picked up his mobile phone and dialed 911.

By the time he reached the pool, someone had pulled David Lewis III from the bottom of the pool.

Someone else retrieved David's brother, Peter Voskian Jr., who was found floating. Gaudette, 24, who learned CPR as a high school student in New Jersey but had never used it, immediately began to try to resuscitate David. He got no response.

David, who would have turned 3 on April 27, died later at Mease Countryside Hospital.

Peter, 4, was in critical condition at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa on Tuesday afternoon.

"I feel bad," Gaudette said Tuesday. "I hope he is at peace."

According to police reports, the boys were outside their home at Bayshore Palms with their grandfather shortly before the accident.

The grandfather, David Blue of Largo, was working on a car. At some point, Blue told the boys to go back to their second-floor apartment where they live with their mother, reports said.

The boys never made it home. Instead, they wandered into the pool area, which is surrounded by a chain link fence with a latch. There was no lock on the fence Monday, according to police reports.

David's father, David Lewis Jr., said he was devastated by the news.

"My son meant the world to me," said Lewis, who said he did not have custody of the child.

The children's mother, Davida Voskian, could not be reached.

David's paternal grandmother, Shirley Mack of New Port Richey, wept when she spoke Tuesday about her grandson whom she said she loved and adored.

She said she had long worried about the boy's well-being. Her son, Mack said, had tried without success to gain custody of David.

State legislators are considering bills that would require homeowners who install new pools to place barriers, exit alarms, or approved safety coverings on swimming pools.

The bill has won approval in the Senate, where it was sponsored by Sen. Don Sullivan, R-Seminole, and is waiting to be heard by the House of Representatives.

State Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston in Broward County, who is sponsoring the bill in the House, said pool safety is a critical issue for Florida.

"The No. 1 killer of children under 5 is drowning in a residential pool," Schultz said.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.