A tragic incident unfolded after a grandmother inadvertently left a back door open, leading to a heartbreaking accident that cost two 18-month-old twins their lives.
Jenny Callazzo, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mother who ran a bow boutique, had been living in an Oklahoma mansion with her grandmother, six children, and 42-year-old husband Sonny, a marketing executive, for approximately a year when tragedy struck her family. On a fateful Thursday, Jenny’s 18-month-old twins Locklyn and Loreli had managed to escape from the $565,000 house in Oklahoma City, only for their mother to find their dead bodies.
Jenny found Loreli and Locklyn Callazzo unresponsive at the bottom of the murky outdoor pool in the backyard of the family’s home. Sadly, it was learned that Jenny’s grandmother, who had been battling Alzheimer’s, left the back door open, allowing the twins to access the pool, the NY Post reported. Jenny immediately began performing CPR on the toddlers, but it was too late.
When Oklahoma City firefighters arrived at the Cobblestone neighborhood home at approximately 10:45 a.m., Jenny had already pulled the children from the water and was administering CPR. Unfortunately, her efforts were in vain. By 1 p.m., both twins would be confirmed dead, having drowned in the family pool after their great-grandmother had left the door open, according to a family relative.
Although first responders continued CPR on the children as they transported them to Baptist Hospital, they were pronounced dead on arrival. The Oklahoma City Fire Department said they are unsure exactly how long the toddlers were in the pool, but neighbors described witnessing a distraught Jenny getting into the back of an EMS vehicle as paramedics battled to save the toddlers.
“It’s certainly disturbing. And, you know, my prayers go out to that family because little children are precious,” neighbor Mike Bernard said, according to the Daily Mail. “They brought out two little children and put them in separate ambulances. And they were doing CPR on both little children,” he continued. “I saw the mother who was distraught, who got in an EMS vehicle.”
Aerial footage of the home captured the pool, which was filled with dark green water that was apparently the result of thick algae. Making the incident all the more horrific, there was seemingly foreshadowing of the tragedy to come in the days before the tragic accident. “Just want to play outside,” Jenny captioned pictures she posted of the twins outside the property just days before the incident.
In the wake of the senseless tragedy, a child safety expert called the death of the toddlers “heartbreaking” and urged parents to remind themselves of the measures they can take to keep their families safe. “I just want to send the family my sincere condolences,” Injury Prevention Coordinator for Trauma at OU Health Laura Gamino said. “From Safe Kids Oklahoma City Metro and Oklahoma Children’s Hospital, [we’re] very, very sorry to hear this. It’s just tragic,” she continued.
“Anything can happen in an instant,” Gamino warned. “Children are attracted to water, and toddlers won’t have the skills to be able to help themselves get out of water,” she added. “Drowning is very sudden, and it’s very silent,” she furthered. “Sometimes people have an idea that a child will have trouble in the water and be screaming, but they can’t because their mouth is full of water. So it’s very silent, and that’s one of the scariest things about it.”
In hopes of preventing such a tragedy from striking another unsuspecting family, Gamino recommended that anyone who owns a pool should install a four-foot-high fence around it with a gate that young children will not be able to open. As a pool owner myself, I also recommend installing alarms on all external doors to alert homeowners when doors are opened.
While pool ownership can be fun, it is also extremely dangerous, especially where small children are concerned. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death for 1- to 4-year-old children. Each year, nearly 300 children under the age of 5 drown in swimming pools. That’s why the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued pool barrier guidelines for pool owners. It’s always better to be safe than sorry, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
