A 6-year-old boy lost his life at the popular Caymanas Mineral Spa in a drowning incident on Tuesday. The child, identified as Josia Lewis, reportedly experienced some difficulty while swimming at the attraction after the Christmas holiday.
According to a report, Josia lived in Tivoli Gardens in Kingston and attended Alpha Primary School. Officers at the Central Village station said that while he was at Caymanas, he reportedly drowned around 3:30 p.m. Police were informed of a drowning incident and went to the scene. When the child was quickly taken to the Spanish Town General Hospital, he was pronounced dead.
In videos obtained by Moon10, the boy appeared to have gone to the attraction with loved ones. One of the pieces of footage shows a woman at the riverbank screaming for the child in agony after he disappeared under the water.
Multiple men swimmers respond by rushing into the water and launching a search for the boy. A crowd gathered at the scene as the woman continued to wail, and the swimmers desperately looked for Josia under the water. Shortly after, a male onlooker alerts the swimmers to a specific area in the water, but they come up empty-handed.
Subsequent footage shows the boy after he was found and removed from the water. Several people crowd around him as a man performs cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to revive him. In the background, bystanders can be heard expressing hope as they watch the water pump out of him.
While some people in the video said they saw signs of life in the child, Josia did not survive the incident. After he was pronounced dead at the hospital, authorities transferred his body to a funeral home, according to an official report.
Police are currently investigating the incident, which they described as a suspected drowning. A postmortem examination is expected to be done on the body at the funeral home.
