PLANTATION, FLA. (WSVN) - A 2-year-old boy drowned after he wandered into a lake in Plantation, police said, becoming the fourth child in South Florida to die by drowning in the past three weeks.
Plantation Police officers responded to a report of a missing 2-year-old along the 1600 block of Northwest 108th Avenue, just after 5:30 p.m. on Thursday.
While officers were heading to this location, investigators said, a family member found the toddler unresponsive in the lake klocated behind the home, removed him from the water and immediately began administering CPR.
Officers arrived shortly and took over lifesaving measures until paramedics with Plantation Fire Rescue arrived at the scene.
The child was rushed to Broward Health Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The boy’s death comes after officials in Florida released critical safety statistics that show drowning rates all across the state are rising.
According to the Safe Children Coalition. Florida’s drowning death rate is already the highest in the nation for children under 5.
“Unfortunately, this year we are paced to surpass last year’s deadliest year on record,” said Malvina Duncan, Injury Prevention Coordinator at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. “A hundred and twenty children died due to drownings last year. This year we’re already at 62.”
The highest number of drownings occurred during the spring and summer seasons in Florida, but they can happen anytime and only take a second.
Officials nevertheless stress that these tragedies are preventable. That was the lesson shared by swim safety organizers at the Boys & Girls Club of Broward County in North Lauderdale on Thursday.
Cassie McGovern, who lost her 1-year-old daughter in 2009, pushed past her grief to become a drowning prevention advocate.
“Standing beside my daughter’s hospital bed, I made her a promise: I would do everything in my power to raise awareness and help other families never experience the same heartache that our family is experiencing,” she said.
Now McGovern is the executive director of Every Child a Swimmer, an organization dedicated to getting children swim lessons for low to no cost. Children are also taught how to respond to an emergency.
“People often think that drowning is something that happens to someone else, but the truth is, it can happen to anyone anywhere. It is fast, it is silent, and the impact is far beyond the child,” said McGovern.
Water is not a parent’s only worry this summer.
“So far, in 2026, we’ve seen four hot car deaths in Florida, and we’ve seen two of those here in Broward County in the last two weeks,” said a spokesperson with Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.
This past Sunday, 2-year-old Brittany was inside a Honda Odyssey in Hallandale Beach for three hours before she was found unresponsive. She was pronouced dead at the hospital.
“Not even a minute should a child be left alone in a car,” said the spokesperson with Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.
Britanny’s mother, Cristina López Ramírez, said the toddler’s babysitter sent her own father to pick up the 2-year-old for the day, The grieving mother told 7News she didn’t know that was happening, and when they arrived home, the babysitter’s father never took the baby out of the minivan.
Less than a week earlier, the father of a 23-month-old boy found the child dead in the back seat of his SUV after he forgot to drop him off at a child education center in Plantation.
Officials say there are so many things that parents can do to save their children’s lives. The first is to get their baby involved in Infant Swimming Resource swim lessons which are different from normal swim lessons. They also advise to to take classes to learn CPR, and when driving their child to school, to make sure they stop and check in with themselves and make sure that they and everyone else are where they need to be.
A relative of the 2-year-old boy who drowned in Plantation said the family wants to grieve in private.
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