Boy, 4, Drowns In East Brunswick Pool On July 4

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — For the second time in just two weeks, someone has drowned in East Brunswick Township.

On Saturday, the July 4 holiday, a four-year-old toddler accidentally fell into an in-ground swimming pool at a party and drowned, according to East Brunswick police.

At 5:13 p.m. Saturday, East Brunswick police responded to a home on Sandalwood Drive for a four-year-old drowning victim. Police say the child fell into the pool during a kindergarten graduation party. When adults realized the boy was missing, a family member observed him at the bottom of the in-ground pool.

When police got there, the child was out of the pool but unresponsive.

The homeowner was giving the child CPR and the officers, along with Robert Wood Johnson EMS, took over. The boy was transported to Robert Wood Johnson hospital. He was put on life support but pronounced dead just before 11 p.m. that same day.

Police say the home's security camera recorded video of the boy falling into the pool, and thus the death has not been viewed as suspicious.

Tragically, this toddler boy is the fourth person to drown in East Brunswick so far this summer. On June 22, a man in his sixties, his daughter-in-law in her thirties and her 8-year-old daughter all drowned while swimming in an above-ground pool behind a home on Clearview Road.

The victims have been identified as the 62-year-old man, Bharat Patel, his daughter-in-law, Nisha Patel, 33, and her 8-year-old daughter, according to the county prosecutor.

All three lived at the home on Clearview Road. They did not know how to swim and their deaths were determined to be a drowning.

In that incident, the above-ground pool was mostly shallow, at 3½ feet deep, but there was a portion of the pool that was 7 feet deep. The Middlesex County prosecutor said it appears the family was swimming together in the pool and none of them knew how to swim. The rest of their family, including the woman's husband, was inside the home when all three drowned.

Related: East Brunswick Pool Victims Identified; Cause Not Yet Revealed (June 22)

Electricity Not Factor In East Brunswick Pool Deaths: Prosecutor (June 24)

Correction: Patch originally incorrectly reported this was an above-ground pool. That was not correct; this happened at an in-ground swimming pool. We regret the error.