Child, 2, drowns in neighbor’s pool while grandmother retrieved mail

A 2-year-old child walked to a neighbor’s pool and drowned as his Palm Harbor grandmother was getting the mail, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office reported.

Around 6 p.m. Wednesday, 2-year-old Robert Kibitlewski was in the front yard of his 48-year-old grandmother’s home in the 3000 block of Sugar Bear Trail. As she retrieved the mail, Robert left her sight.

The grandmother asked Robert’s mother if he came back inside, but she said no, according to the sheriff’s office. They started looking for him in the neighborhood and deputies were told about the missing child 15 minutes later.

Just as deputies arrived to the scene, Robert was found floating in a pool just four houses away. The grandmother performed CPR on the child but he was unresponsive, the sheriff’s office said. He was transported to Mease Countryside Hospital with life-threatening injuries but pronounced dead at 6:57 p.m.

According to detectives, the drowning appears to be accidental. The investigation is ongoing.

The death comes just one day after a 2-year-old Apopka girl drowned while vacationing with her family on Anna Maria Island. At least one other Manatee County child drowned this year, and two others nearly drowned.

Manatee Memorial Hospital board-certified lactation consultant and bi-weekly columnist for the Bradenton Herald Katie Powers, R.N., recently advised parents and guardians to prevent drownings through “touch supervision,” or keeping a child within arm’s length when near or in water. Drowning can happen as quickly as 30 seconds, Powers wrote, and it can appear silent and sudden.

This story was originally published July 13, 2017 at 8:11 AM with the headline "Child, 2, drowns in neighbor’s pool while grandmother retrieved mail."