( 4UMF NEWS ) 11-Year-Old Electrocuted Playing Miniature Golf:
An 11-year-old New York girl vacationing with her family in Florida died after being electrocuted at a miniature golf course, officials said.
Ashton Jojo, of upstate Latham, was trying to retrieve her ball from a small pond at the Orange Lake Resort in Kissimmee when she suffered the fatal shock Wednesday.
Ashton screamed in pain and another guest, Christopher Burges of Alabama, rushed to her aid, but he was also injured and unable to save the child.
Ashton was rushed to Celebration Hospital in Celebration, Fla., where she died.
“It has been ruled an accident, but the cause was electrocution,” Shawn Thomas of the Orange-Osceola medical examiner’s office said. “An autopsy is being conducted.”
Ashton was on vacation in the Orlando area with her parents and brother and had celebrated her 11th birthday Friday, officials said.
She was playing at one of the sprawling timeshare resort’s minigolf courses about 2 p.m. when her ball landed in a small 2-foot-deep pond.
“Ashton went to get the ball out and as she was in there … the 11-year-old Ashton was electrocuted,” the grandmother of one of the dead girl’s friends told Orlando broadcaster WESH 2.
“It’s hard to imagine that sort of thing can happen at a beautiful resort. It’s just so tragic.”
Inspectors discovered the wrong electrical breakers were put into the mini golf water feature. Water may have entered the motor or electrical components, causing the fatal electric charge, Allen Morton, assistant manager of Orange County’s Division of Building Safety, told the Orlando Sentinel.
