PORT EVERGLADES, Fla. – Detectives are calling Saturday's near-drowning involving a 4-year-old boy on board a cruise ship "an accident."
Broward Sheriff's Office detectives said the boy had wandered away from his mother on the 15th deck on the Oasis of the Seas.
The mother frantically searched for her child but was unable to see him enter a wave pool, where he was swept away and remained under water for almost six minutes, BSO Department of Fire Rescue spokesman Mike Jachles said. A guest on deck motioned to a man in the pool, alerting him to the boy.
The man in the pool plucked the child from the water and handed him to bystanders on deck, who initiated CPR until the ship's staff took over and brought the boy to the infirmary, Jachles said.
At some point in the infirmary, medical staff revived the child to where a pulse and blood pressure were restored, Jachles said.
The boy was taken to Broward Health Medical Center in critical condition.
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