Warwick Drowning: Six-Year-Old Boy Did Not Know How to Swim

Warwick Drowning: Six-Year-Old Boy Did Not Know How to Swim

The woman who pulled six-year-old Jamir Stewart from the water at Warwick City Park on Sunday said that at "no time" did any rescue personnel get into the water to find the boy -- who did not know how to swim -- and was later pronounced dead at Kent Hospital. 

Angel Soares of East Providence told GoLocalProv.com that from the time Stewart's family told lifeguards the boy was missing on Sunday evening until the time he was found unresponsive in the water by Soares -- approximately forty-five minutes -- that it was only beachgoers who were searching the water. 

"From the time we realized he was gone, it was probably five minutes since we'd last seen him," said Soares.  "The lifeguard started walking down the beach, calling for rescue. At no time did any (authorities) get in the water when they arrived. It was just us, I'd say it was about 12 of us to start, and then we got more people. I was yelling and screaming as to why there weren't more people looking in the water."

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A family friend told GoLocal that he confirmed that six-year-old Stewart did not know how to swim. 

Putting the "Puzzle Pieces" Together

Soares said that she recognized there were a number of "puzzle pieces" that still needed to be put together about the response. 

"We knew he was in the water. He wasn't the type of boy to wonder off, his mom told me.  We knew he was in the water last," said Soares. "But they insisted on checking all over the beach.  And they weren't making it sound like an emergency. I saw people saunter out of the water. It seemed like there was no urgency."

Soares said she found Stewart in waist-deep water, after the man next to her said,"Oh God," when he brushed up against the body in the line searching for him. 

"It was waist-deep -- I don't know if something happened and he happened to get water in his mouth," said Soares. "People make it sound like the mother should have been looking after him and that she wasn't, but she was right there. She lost sight of him for five minutes."

Soares says she questions there being only two lifeguards for what she said was more than a hundred people at the beach that day. 

"The lifeguards were just kids. They should have had seasoned lifeguards," said Soares. "You could just see they were deer in the headlights. The protocol should have been different.  They didn't know how to wing it."

Editor's Note: Soares later corrected her comments to say there were 100 people at the beach that day, not necessarily in the water at the time of the incident.