SASATOON -- A boy who was found unresponsive on the shoreline at Pike Lake has died according to a family member who spoke to CTV.
The family member identified the boy as 10 year-old Legacy Cooke.
The Saskatoon Fire Department (SFD) says just after 4 p.m. on Tuesday, crews were called to Pike Lake for reports of a missing child near the lake.
The SFD says several crews responded including the RCMP, Medavie Health Services West, STARS Air Ambulance, Delisle & District Fire Department in addition to Saskatchewan Provincial Parks Staff.
The SFD says when crews arrived they found a unresponsive boy on the shoreline being attended to by paramedics and police
The SFD said boy was airlifted to hospital in critical condition after being found unresponsive on the shoreline at Pike Lake.
The Fire Department originally said the boy was nine years old but the family member who spoke to CTV says the boy was 10.
The family member who identified the boy tells CTV doctors and nurses did everything they could to save his life. It’s unclear exactly what events led to the boy being transported to hospital.
“It is understood that the child was not wearing a lifejacket or PFD when he was removed from the water,” the fire department said in a release Tuesday night.
Paramedics assisted in conducting CPR before STARS Air Ambulance transported the boy to hospital in Saskatoon.
Shelby Rushton, CEO of the Lifesaving Society of Saskatchewan, says Cooke is the fifth child and eighth person to die in a water-related death this summer.
“Having five children drown in one summer is pretty much unheard of in this province.”
Four adults had died by drowning by August last year, she said.
If a child does not know how to swim they should wear a life jacket near or within water, she said.
Wearing one makes it easier to grab a child if they fall in the water and it prevents them from falling on their face, she said.
