Riverdale twins, age 5, die in apparent drowning at Florida rental, officials say

Twin 5-year-old girls from Riverdale died Friday in an apparent drowning hours after they arrived at a vacation rental house near Walt Disney World on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida, according to sheriff’s deputies there.

The sisters, whose names have not been released by the authorities investigating their deaths, were believed to have drowned in a pool at the house in Kissimmee sometime after daybreak Friday.

As is standard procedure in such deaths, homicide investigators will examine the incident, said Osceola County sheriff’s Capt. Kim Montes, director of public information and community relations. A medical examiner will determine the girls’ causes of death.

“I can’t officially say it’s drowning yet,” Montes added, “but that’s probably what it’s going to be.”

Rescuers were called to the home at 11:04 a.m. after the sisters were found unresponsive and pulled from the water. Osceola sheriff’s deputies and firefighters tried to resuscitate the girls. They were flown by helicopter to Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, where they were pronounced dead.

Montes on Saturday told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the children were part of a two-family traveling party that arrived in Kissimmee, just south of Orlando, in the wee hours of Friday.

Soon after the group got to the house at about 1 a.m., the children went swimming, she said. When they got out of the pool, the door leading from the house to the backyard pool was believed to have been locked, Montes said.

“Everybody came back in, they all went to bed,” she said. “The adults got up and they wanted to go get provisions — water, food, stuff for the house. So they left.”

She said a 15-year-old remained behind to look after the girls, but Montes said the teen “apparently fell back asleep.” Montes said that at some later point, another child at the house awoke and noticed the twins were missing.

No adults were at the house when the twins were found, she said, and it wasn’t immediately clear what time the grown-ups left, just that it was “later in the morning.”

The pool, like many in that region, is surrounded by a screened enclosure to fend off bugs and other pests. It also has a safety gate, Montes said.

“There is a pool fence, like a childproof fence around the pool, but we do not know if it was secured at the time that the kids” may have entered the pool, the sheriff’s captain said.