2 Boys Drown: Brothers, 8 And 9-Years-Old, Drown At Excavation Site Near Indiana Pond

Two boys drowned in Indiana on Saturday night after venturing off to an unsafe area. CBS Local in Chicago reports that brothers Donel and Terrion Smith from Gary were a few blocks away from their home when they stopped at a pond in Hobart. Sand excavation had reportedly been going on in the area near I-65. The two brothers — ages 8 and 9 years old — were with a relative when they went into the water.

The relative, Dasean Smith, was with the brothers before they drowned. Things went bad quickly for the two boys once they entered the water-filled pit. Smith says:

“I got up in there and I tried to pull them out but I was about to drown too, but I got out.”

Dean Hashem, a neighbor close by, tried helping the two brothers:

“It’s quite dangerous. As soon as you get in that water, it drops off, the police said about 15 foot or so.”

The children drowned because they didn’t know how to swim. Tatiana Smith, the boys’ mother, is upset the location wasn’t better marked as dangerous. She says:

“They should have blocked it off. We wouldn’t have to be right here, right now, going through this.”

The excavation site has a warning sign, but there’s no gate, fence, or other type of barricade to prevent people from entering. It once had sand dunes and trees, but it’s being cleared for additional development. Now it’s a site where someone can easily drown if they don’t know how to swim in deep water.

ABC 7 reports that the depth of the excavation pit “measures roughly 20 feet across and roughly 20 feet deep.” Tatiana says she’s not just burying one child, but two. Ironically, two of her siblings died as a result of drowning when she was very young.

The boys might have gone to the sandy, water-filled pit after some friends from school introduced them to it earlier. Donel and Terrion were with their 10-year-old uncle and some other kids when they entered the water.

Hashem recalls:

“A few minutes later kids came running up the door saying, ‘Call 911, call 911, they’re drowning.'”

The brothers were pulled out, taken to a nearby hospital, and were pronounced dead.

The two boys were students at an all-boys academy in Gary, the report goes on to say. Donel was going to be a fourth grader this fall and, Terrion, a third grader.

Another Inquisitr article about on this topic has to do with an 11-year-old girl saving a woman from drowning in Florida.

[Image via Commons Wikimedia]