An Oklahoma family is in mourning after their 18-month-old twins drowned in their backyard pool.
According to Oklahoma City Fire battalion chief Scott Douglas, their mother, Jenny Callazzo, spotted siblings Locklyn and Loreli Callazzo in the water on March 16. When first responders arrived on the scene, he added, they discovered Locklyn and his sister Loreli on the ground and immediately began patient care. He stated that the children’s hearts had stopped beating and that they had no pulse.
“The mother explained to TODAY.com that she was homeschooling an older child while the younger children played in the living room,” Douglas said. “The grandma left the back door open, allowing access to the pool. The mother indicated that the maximum time they could have been in the pool was ten minutes.”
Locklyn and Loreli were taken to a nearby hospital and proclaimed dead.
The Callazzos, according to Douglas, did not have a pool barrier and had “open access.” Douglas says he doesn’t know if the rear entrance leading to the pool has an alarm.
Residential swimming pools in Oklahoma must be encircled by a fence that is at least 4 feet tall, or 48 inches. They must also feature self-closing safety gates, as required by law.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, every residential pool should be encircled by a fence to prevent unauthorised access from the house. “There is no substitute for at least a four-foot-high, nonclimbable, four-sided fence with a self-closing, self-latching gate,” the group cautions.
The Oklahoma City Police Department’s Captain Valerie Littlejohn tells TODAY.com that the investigation into Locklyn and Loreli’s deaths is “still active.”
The twins’ godmother, Dawn Lemon, characterises Locklyn and his sister Loreli as “inseparable.”
“They had never been apart. They did not want individual chairs. They both desired to sleep together. You would never see one without the other “TODAY.com has learned from Lemon.
Locklyn enjoyed music and played the harmonica, while Loreli was a natural dancer who “felt she was lot older than she was,” according to Lemon.
“They were the most adorable newborns,” she says. “They enjoyed playing hide & seek behind the drapes. They’d shout, ‘Where are we!?’ with their little toes sticking out. They had no idea we could see their feet.”
Four siblings, including 17-year-old twin brothers, survive the toddlers.
