SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah — A 2-year-old boy died hours after he was reported missing Saturday morning in a remote area of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.
The Summit County Sheriff's Office said it originally received a report early Saturday that a child was missing in the Christmas Meadows area.
In an update Sunday, new information from the sheriff's office detailed that the boy was actually found unresponsive in a drainage ditch by a civilian, not a law enforcement officer, in an area in the Manorlands, which is about 60 miles north of Christmas Meadows.
The location of the drainage ditch was about a mile from where the family was camping.
After being found at 11:15 a.m., the boy was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Wyoming, and then airlifted to a Salt Lake-area hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The child's death is being called a "tragic accident" by the sheriff's office, who added that a family member was also hospitalized for a separate medical issue not believed to be connected to the boy.
An investigation into the child's death remains ongoing.
Dr. Ellie Brownstein is a local pediatrician. She shared ways children can run into hazards while camping.
“The biggest cause of unintentional death in kids [ages] 1-4 is drowning. Over half of drowning cases don’t happen in pools or in your house; they happen in a natural body of water," she said. "Even streams, very little water can be dangerous because they can fall and if it covers their nose and mouth, they may not understand how to get out of that situation.”
She shared other potential hazards for children roaming in the outdoors.
“Kids reaching into a fire pit, falling, tripping, dropping something, reaching for something that’s fallen into a fire, could be a risk," she said. “People try heating or cooking in their tent, which can actually lead to carbon monoxide poisoning. Kids are much more susceptible to those things than we are.”
