Today the family of a 17 month old baby girl is in mourning after she drowned in a well. Baby Orellana was playing with her family when she made her way to a well on the edge of the family's property unnoticed; she fell in before anyone realized she was missing, and died before they found her.
Orellana is the second baby from Belmopan's Maya Mopan area to drown this year. In January, 18 month old Edwin Duarte, fell into his family's well while they were doing the laundry.
Today, our news team went out west to find out what happened. Here's Alex Courtenay with the story...
Alex Courtenay reporting
Yesterday the children of the Coy family in Maya Mopan were playing the front of their family's property when 17 month old Orellana slipped away from the group unnoticed. She was only out of sight for a few minutes before the older kids realized she was gone and began to panic.
Magdalena Tiu - Aunt of deceased
"Yesterday about 5, between 5 and 5:30, they were playing out in the yard here and then noticed her where she went her whereabouts because they were playing and the kids were scattered - 2 were over there and nobody saw her when she disappeared, until all of a sudden we heard screaming because we were looking for her."
The family immediately began to search the entire property before checking the well, just off the side of the road. Unfortunately, by the time they found her, it was already too late.
Magdalena Tiu - Aunt of deceased
"And then when the other two siblings starting shouting and they said that the baby is in the well. She has drown and on top of the water floating. And everyone started to come here and look and that was the case. When they took her out, they tried to take out the water and it was no use, because she was not breathing."
Now the family is left grieving the loss of their youngest member, while trying to figure out how she could have made it to the well without anyone noticing.
Magdalena Tiu - Aunt of deceased
"Well everyone is really sad, everyone is hurted of missing and losing her, because she is the only little baby that is walking around most of the time going to our houses. She is very young. She is one year seven months and then she walks around and then nobody saw her."
Orellana was rushed to the Western Regional Hospital immediately after she was found, but she was already dead by the time they got there.
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