Baby drowns in bathtub in North Chautauqua home

A baby who had just turned 1 drowned in a bathtub Thursday night after his mother left him unattended for 15 minutes, according to police.

The 25-year-old mother had put her 3-year-old girl and her twin 1-year-olds in a bathtub in a house on the 800 block of North Chautauqua around 10 p.m. She then started cleaning the house for the next 15 minutes, according to police. She found one of her boys unresponsive, grabbed him and ran outside asking for help from neighbors. Some neighbors came over and tried to revive the child but he was pronounced dead a short time later by an EMS crew.

The police think the death was an accident, according to Lt. James Espinoza, calling it “an error in judgment.”

“That is not the right place to put a child if you are not giving full attention to them,” Espinoza said. “Obviously a 1-year-old can’t swim or properly recognize what water is to be honest with you, so it’s just a tremendous tragedy.”

This story was originally published August 28, 2015 at 7:19 AM with the headline "Baby drowns in bathtub in North Chautauqua home."