Cedar Park Drowning Death Prompts Parental Advice

CEDAR PARK, TX — As regulators continue to investigate the drowning death of a six-year-old girl at a Cedar Park pool last week, a state official imparted advice for parents on safeguarding their children around water.

John Lennan, a media specialist at the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), spoke to Patch on Wednesday about the June 4 incident that claimed the girl's life. While he wasn't able to provide details given privacy concerns save for the age and gender of the child, Lennan pointed to several resources available to parents to avert further tragedies.

Emergency officials responded to the Buttercup Pool, 411 Twin Oak Trail, on June 4 amid reports of a child in distress. By the next evening, the girl succumbed to her injuries at an area hospital. The child reportedly was among a group of youths attending the High Hopes Summer Camp, a Cedar Park after-school daycare facility that billing itself as providing a "Christ-centered fun for kids of all backgrounds and abilities."

Despite some media reports, DFPS isn't able to confirm if the summer camp was part of the investigation. "Our investigations are confidential by law," Lennan explained in a telephone interview with Patch. "We're investigating the passing of a child," is all he broadly offered. "We do have an investigation into the death of a child that passed away at a facility," he later reiterated.

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In the absence of details, the conversation turned to avoidance of child drownings. In the last legislative session, daycare oversight was split between DFPS and the Texas Health and Human Services agency, Lennan explained. While DFPS still has oversight into investigations on incidents connected to daycare facilities, HHS handles licensing aspects.

Consequently, the HHS provides a portal where parents can check to see if a daycare facility they are considering for their children has had past infractions and whether their licensing is current. "Parents are employing that facility to watch child," Lennan said in a hypothetical scenario. "Wouldn't you want to see a résumé ?"

To check a daycare facility's background, parents and guardians can visit the HHS website, where a portal exists where fields can be input to isolate the search. "Don't be in the dark about child care!" Texas Health and Human Services officials wrote on the state agency website. "Before entrusting your child to a day care, check its state record."

Added Lennan: "What you get is a regulatory history of the facility, what the outcome of the investigation is, the director, number of children" among other data, he said.

A search of High Hopes Summer Camp yielded no past infractions or licensing violations. A list of involuntarily suspended or revoked daycare facilities yielded six entries from Cedar Park in the years 2011-15. To check a daycare facility's background, click here.

The portal offers wide search options contingent on the input of information in various fields to narrow the search. Parents/guardians can use the resource to search for facilities' backgrounds and find a list of involuntraily suspended or revoked operations:

For its part, the Department of Family and Protective Services has its own resource designed to prevent child drowning deaths in the form of its watchkidsaroundwater.org portal. There, parents and guardians can:

Lennan reminded that the manner in which a child reacts to drowning is not only different from that of a grownup, but is not the same as portrayed in fictional accounts: "Sometimes in movies or TV shows, they show a child flailing," he began. But that's not always the way it is in real life: "A child who's been struggling to stay above water will be silent and motionless with their chin above water."

The state agency recommends constant adult supervision when a child is in a body of water. And that's not limited to outdoor pools or bodies of water, either. While half of all locations where Texas children drown are pools, much of the remaining incidents occur in bathtubs at home, he noted.

Lennan said an adult tasked to look over a child in a pool should watch that child at all times, with the added tactic of assigning someone as a designated watcher. "Any body of water can become a hazard to a child if unsupervised."

He suggested teaching children to swim, but extended the idea in making it a family activity with parents joining in the lessons.

So far this year in Texas, 34 children under the age of 17 have drowned in Texas, according to the Texas Department of Family and Health Services. The scourge of drowning isn't limited to Texas. The German Lifeguard Association — the world's largest group of volunteer lifeguards — attributed some 300 drownings of children in the European country largely to neglectful parents fixated on their cell phones, The Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday.

"If you can't see them, you can't save them," Lennan said.

So turn off the phone while your children are swimming, and watch your little charges like a hawk. Such attentiveness could save their lives.