A three-year-old North York girl had a brush with death after she nearly drowned in her family's bathtub.
She was in the family's 27th-floor apartment at a building on Hillcrest Avenue, which is near Yonge Street and Sheppard Avenue. She had been in the tub with her older sister when their father left the room for about a minute.
The sister screamed for help. The father returned to find the younger girl underwater and unconscious.
He pulled her from the tub and revived her by performing CPR -- an act that undoubtedly saved her life.
Paramedics rushed the child to North York General Hospital. The mother wasn't home at the time, but she joined her husband and their two other children at the hospital.
Doctors have declared the girl to be out of danger but she will stay in hospital overnight for observation.
Local residents were shaken to hear of the family's close call.
"My heart goes to these parents," said Marge Blaszczyk, a mother of two. "It takes less than a minute for something like this to happen."
As a parent, you have to be aware of such risks all the time, she said.
The Safe Kids Canada website warns that children under the age of five are at particular risk from drowning because of their smaller lungs.
They can drown in only five centimetres of water.
Young girls are at higher risk of drowning in bathtubs than young boys.
With a report from CTV Toronto's Jim Junkin
