An Oklahoma family is grieving after their 18-month-old twins drowned in a backyard swimming pool.
Jenny Callazzo said she discovered Locklyn and Loreli Callazzo in the pool March 16, according to Oklahoma City Fire battalion chief Scott Douglas.
He said first responders found Locklyn and his sister Loreli on the ground and immediately began patient care. The children’s hearts had stopped beating, he said, and they did not have a pulse.
“The mother explained she was homeschooling an older child while the younger children were playing in the living room,” Douglas said. “The grandmother left the back door open, leaving an exit to the swimming pool. The mother stated the longest they could have been in the swimming pool was 10 minutes. “
Locklyn and Loreli were transported to an area hospital where they were pronounced dead.
Douglas said the Callazzos did not have a pool fence and there was “open access.” The battalion chief could not say if there was an alarm on the back door leading out to the pool.
In Oklahoma, residential swimming pools must be surrounded by a fence a minimum of 4 feet, or 48 inches, tall with self-closing safety gates.
Captain Valerie Littlejohn of the Oklahoma City Police Department said the investigation into the toddler's deaths of is “still open.”
Dawn Lemon, the twins’ godmother, said the pair were “inseparable.”
“They didn’t want separate chairs. They wanted to sleep together. You never saw one without the other,” Lemon said.
They had four siblings, including 17-year-old twin brothers.
Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death for children ages 1 to 4, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are nearly 300 drownings of children younger than 5 each year in swimming pools, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.