A family vacation turned into a nightmare when a family could not find their 8-year-old daughter at the Hilton DoubleTree hotel in Houston.
She had been reported missing on Saturday at around 6 p.m. after being last seen at the hotel’s lazy river-style swimming pool.
Family members searched all over the hotel property for hours, and then when investigators reviewed security video, they saw the girl, Aliyah Jaico, in the pool, but she did not resurface.
The pool was then drained so they could check the pipes. Officials spent 13 hours searching the pool to discover that the 8-year-old had been sucked 20 feet into the pool pipe.
According to the medical examiner, the girl’s death was caused by drowning and mechanical asphyxia.
Officials reportedly said that the malfunctioning pool pipe was not pumping water in but instead was sucking water out.
According to the Houston Health Department, the last inspection of the pool in June 2023 noted that doors to the pool didn’t self-latch, had poor signage, and lacked a working emergency phone.
Jaico’s mother, Daniela, shared online her heartbreak of losing her daughter.
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“They say we all have our destiny marked … but I can’t understand why yours was like this,” Daniela Jaico wrote about her daughter on social media in Spanish.
She added, “You are the most beautiful thing God has given me and after every battle we went through together, we didn’t win this one.”
