Walton toddler dies after being found in home pool

A Walton County toddler died Monday after being found unconscious in his home pool, authorities said.

Walton sheriff’s deputies responded about 9:15 a.m. to a report of a missing child in Loganville, according to the incident report. The woman told deputies that her 3-year-old foster son had been missing since about 6:30 a.m.

The child had come into the mother’s room, and she told him it was too early to be up and to go back to bed, according to the report.

The woman said when she got up about 9 a.m., she could not find the child. She said she checked around the house, including the pool in the back yard, according to the report.

The woman told deputies she thought the back door was locked, but she could not be sure, according to the report. She also said the garage was closed and the front door was locked.

Another deputy arrived to help with the search, and soon after looking upstairs and downstairs, deputies heard a woman screaming from the back yard. When a deputy went through the unlocked basement door, the woman was calling for help, saying, “He’s in the pool, he’s in the pool,” according to the report.

Deputies found the woman and the child on a partially built deck, according to the report. A deputy performed CPR. Later, fire and emergency medical crews took the child to Clearview Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.