TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — For the first time, the mom of a young boy who drowned in a pond last week is sharing her heartbreaking story.
“He was a happy boy,” Jessika Pena Sánchez said. “He was jumping everywhere; he was so sweet.”
“But you know, he was limited because his autism,” she continued. “But he was a great kid.”
That’s how Sánchez remembers her little boy, 6-year-old Jay Rodríguez.
She said he was a joyful kid with level three autism.
Last Thursday, Sánchez said, her life came to a halt when she left her son with a nanny while she ran to Walmart.
“I said goodbye to him, and he said goodbye to me with that big smile,” she cried. “I just told her, ‘Watch him for five minutes.'”
“She said, ‘That’s fine,’ but when I left, she called me back and said ‘Oh, I don’t find him,'” Sánchez explained.
She said her son was found in a nearby pond.
First responders said they administered CPR, but Rodríguez was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Now, Sánchez and her fellow neighbors are calling for more safety measures like making fences around ponds mandatory.
“Can you imagine if an alligator grabbed the body?” she said. “That was my biggest fear because then my baby would suffer.”
Karina Escoto-Garcia lives in the same neighborhood and also has a child with autism.
She wishes there were more precautions in place, like required signs in residential areas with special needs children, to help kids like Rodríguez.
“My concern is that this might occur again, particularly during the summer months. Many kids, especially those with autism, often can’t swim and may not recognize danger, so this situation could easily repeat itself,” she mentioned. “This neighborhood is home to many children on the spectrum and even adults with special needs.”
