Toddler Drowns in Pool: Frantic efforts to revive two-year-old girl failed

Hailie Jade LeBron, a 2-year-old, drowned in a pool in Amagansett on Friday afternoon, in the time it took her grandmother to move an umbrella from the backyard to the front of the house.

Hailie lived with her grandparents, Lois and John McCluskey of Abraham's Path; her parents are Diana and Derrick LeBron of East Hampton. Mr. McCluskey had gone to the store, and Ms. McCluskey was cleaning the house for summer renters.

The pool, which had recently been filled for the season, was completely fenced in from the outside but not from the house, East Hampton Town police said. Hailie was able to go outside through an open door and reach the pool without having to open a gate.

After moving the umbrella to the front yard, Ms. McCluskey returned to the house and called for Hailie, she said yesterday. She saw the sliding door open in the kitchen, became alarmed, and seconds later found Hailie floating motionless in the deep end of the pool.

"It all happened very fast," said Lt. Kevin Sarlo of the town police. Ms. McCluskey told the police that she had only "turned away momentarily."

Ms. McCluskey entered the deep end and pulled Hailie from the pool, she said yesterday. Her husband returned as she was pulling Hailie out and called 911 at 12:14 p.m.

Ms. McCluskey said emergency dispatchers told her husband how to try to clear Hailie's lungs before police and ambulance crews arrived. "A lot of water came out," she said.

While her husband waited anxiously with Hailie, Ms. McCluskey said, she ran to the street to find immediate help. Janette Goodstein of East Hampton, a real estate agent with Allan Schneider Associates, said she was driving past Ms. McCluskey's house when she saw a woman standing in the road, soaking wet, trying to flag down a car.

Ms. McCluskey was yelling, "My baby's drowning. Someone help my baby," Ms. Goodstein said. She pulled over and ran to the backyard, where she found Mr. McCluskey with Hailie.

He told her he did not know cardiopulmonary resuscitation, so Ms. Goodstein proceeded to administer C.P.R. to Hailie. Ms. Goodstein said she could not feel Hailie's pulse, but that a little pool water did come out of her lungs.

Ms. Goodstein continued C.P.R. until an Amagansett ambulance crew and police officers arrived - eight minutes after the 911 call, according to Lieutenant Sarlo. Emergency medical service workers continued to try to revive Hailie in the ambulance as they rushed her to Southampton Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 1:08 p.m.