KEY LARGO, Fla. – A 28-year-old Homestead woman was arrested Sunday after her 3-year-old daughter was left unattended in the water at Gilbert’s Resort in Key Largo and nearly drowned, authorities said.
According to Monroe County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Adam Linhardt, deputies were called to Gilbert’s around 6 p.m. after a good Samaritan pulled the toddler from the water.
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Surveillance video shows that the girl was not wearing any floatation devices and appeared to be drowning before being pulled from the water, Linhardt said.
According to an MCSO arrest report obtained by Local 10 News, the girl had “red skin, red, watery eyes and (was) coughing up water” after being pulled out.
Authorities said the good Samaritan and a resort employee could not find the girl’s parents or guardian following the rescue.
The girl’s mother, Yavelin Fernandez, was later found and appeared to be intoxicated, Linhardt said.
Fernandez “was cursing and yelling racial remarks at law enforcement on scene,” deputies wrote in the arrest report.
After watching the surveillance video, deputies discovered that she also left a 5-year-old boy unattended, Linhardt said.
Fernandez told deputies that she had left the girl with her brother for “two seconds,” the report states. But witnesses told deputies that Fernandez hadn’t returned to the beach until nearly 25 minutes after the incident.
Both children are OK, authorities said.
Fernandez, meanwhile, was arrested on a child neglect charge.