( 4UMF NEWS ) Two Girls Drown As Nanny Chats On Phone:
Two 5-year-old girls in Texas drowned in an outdoor swimming pool while the woman who was supposed to be watching them was taking a 45-minute phone call inside, police said.
Eduardo Juarez of Dallas said he and other family members went to buy lunch on Sunday afternoon, leaving his daughter Sophia at home with the live-in housekeeper and her own granddaughter.
“When the family returned home, they were looking for their daughter, and her 10-year-old brother found both little girls at the bottom of the swimming pool,” Sgt. Bill Gorman of the Dallas Police Department told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Gorman said he checked the cell phone of the 58-year-old housekeeper, whose name was released, and learned she was on the phone for 45 minutes.
“The fact that she was not being as attentive to the children, she [in] my opinion, bears responsibility,” Gorman told Channel 2 Action News.
It’s not clear how the girls, both found still in their clothes, ended up in the pool.
“No one saw anything, no one witnessed anything,” Gorman told the AJC. “They were not dressed for swimming, and it was raining, so they were not supposed to be swimming.”
Juarez said his daughter, who could swim, may have jumped into the pool to save the other girl, identified as Mia Penoyer, according to Mundo Hispanico.
Speaking in Spanish, he told the newspaper he holds the nanny “100% responsible.”
“We trusted her for taking care of our daughter, and instead, she got distracted on the phone,” Juarez said.
That is such a terrible tragedy.
