3-Year-Old Drowns In Canal While Feeding Ducks, Death Ruled Accident

The death of a 3-year-old boy who tragically drowned last month in a canal in southern England while feeding ducks has been ruled an accident.

The incident took place on March 13 when the toddler, Dylan Milsom, was feeding ducks at the park near Kennet and Avon canal in Newbury, Berkshire with his mother, grandmother, and younger brother. A statement read out in the Reading Coroner’s Court Monday said the group had moved closer to the canal to lower Milsom’s piece of bread so that it could reach the ducks.

At some point, Milsom went on another side of a barrier railing despite his mother Shelley Nardini cautioning him he might fall in. When Nardini turned around to collect a bag of bread from a pushchair, she saw Dylan being swept away in the water, BBC reported.

A statement read on behalf of Milsom’s grandmother, Jackie Arrowsmith said the boy had tripped over a large tuft of grass and fell into the canal. Arrowsmith got down on the ground in an attempt to rescue the toddler but couldn’t get hold of him. His mother then jumped into the water to rescue the boy and saw him being sucked under the weir right in front of her. She said the weir has a "really fast current." Soon, the boy was pulled away at a great distance and his mother was unable to see him, BBC reported.

Nardini somehow managed to grab a branch thereby saving her life. One eyewitness told the court that Nardini screamed as she saw her son being washed further away, Reading Chronicle reported.

"She started screaming for her son -- it was at that point I realized there was someone else in the water," the eyewitness was quoted by the publication, as saying.

The bystander then called the emergency services. One officer who recovered Milsom from water found the boy wasn’t breathing and his face was "cold to touch." Paramedics arrived at the location and determined the boy had a cardiac arrest. The toddler was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Reading Town Hall Assistant coroner Ian Wade QC called the drowning incident "extraordinarily tragic" during the inquest Monday and passed a verdict of accidental death.

"This was an unintended and unwanted accident," Wade said during the inquest. "We do not seek to deny everyone access to nature. It would not have been appropriate if there was any other protection. This was one of those dreadful things," Wade told Reading Chronicle.