Woman accused of child neglect after toddler injured in swimming pool
CLERMONT — A woman has been arrested and charged with child neglect with great bodily harm after a 2-year-old girl in the woman's care had to be taken to a pediatric hospital when she fell into a swimming pool and was unresponsive.
Dynasty Hicks, 18, of Barnwell, South Carolina, was arrested Sunday at a vacation Airbnb in the 16000 block of Glenbrook Boulevard, where she was staying with several other people.
Lake County Sheriff's Office investigators decided to press charges, among other reasons, because Hicks did not dial 911 but instead called the child’s mother on Facetime. The mother was 22 minutes away, according to the arrest affidavit.
“This is what prompted the mother to contact emergency services as she rushed home,” the affidavit said. She told the 911 dispatcher “white stuff was coming out of the child’s mouth and the child was unstable.”
The child was taken by helicopter to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, where she was last listed in stable condition in intensive care.
This is how the case developed
The mother said she left the home on a prearranged outing with specific instructions for Hicks not to allow the 2-year-old to go near the poor, or to go outside.
Security camera footage from the home at one point shows the child, who was not wearing swim gear, running along the edge of the pool, falling, and hitting her head. Hicks is shown reaching down to pick her up, but doesn’t, according to the Lake sheriff’s arrest affidavit.
One shot shows Hicks coming out of the house to take a brief selfie with her phone, then going back inside.
Another shows “as many as five minor children appearing to be under the age of 10 in the pool without supervision, and with the French doors leading into the residence closed. Of the10 videos received, only twice is the defendant observed to exit the residence and check on the children,” the affidavit says.
One video shows the 2-year-old sitting along the edge of the deep end of the pool with a little toy bucket. The next video shows her floating face down in the water while four other children were playing in the shallow end.
After “an extended time,” a 7-year-old noticed the child, pulled her out of the water, and summoned help, the affidavit says.
Hicks said she was in her room at the far end of the house, away from the pool. When asked about the mother’s request that the child not be allowed near the poor or outside, she said, “I don’t recall,” according to the affidavit.
Investigators were also struck by her reaction. “The defendant did not express the level of response that manifests in these types of incidents, and appeared to be bothered that law enforcement was interrupting her vacation,” the affidavit says.
There were seven or eight children in the home, ranging in age from 5 months to 15 years old.
From 2018 to 2020 combined, Florida had the highest rate of unintentional child drownings in the country, at 3.19 per 100,000, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Swimming pool incident leads to arrest, child neglect charge
