Family mourns loss of 4-year-old girl after drowning in Mounds View, Minnesota hotel pool
Lamyah Reece sadly died after the drowning but her family says the girl's spirit will live on. (Supplied)
MOUNDS VIEW, Minn. (FOX 9) - A family is in mourning days after losing their four-year-old daughter in a tragic drowning at a hotel pool in Mounds View, Minnesota.
Saturday, the medical examiner identified the young girl as Lamyah Reece.
Lamyah's family says the young girl was energetic, smart, helpful, and very loving. Now, they are struggling to figure out how life will be without their sweet girl.
"Always happy, just smiling and wanting to help everybody," said recalled Lamyah's mother Samiya Hammonds.
Samiya Hammonds is dealing with the devastating news of her daughter’s death. The nightmare started at a family birthday pool party at the AmericInn in Mounds View last Saturday.
"All the kids were letting her go down the slide and catching her at the end, cameras showed. I didn’t see them, but they just explained to us is she went down the slide by herself," Hammonds said.
Hammonds was not there at the time, so she only knows what happened from other family that was and investigators looking into what unfolded.
"No one really seen her drowning for like five minutes, and then one of her little cousins got her out and tried to do CPR on her," Hammonds said. "He's only 10."
Lamyah’s family tells us she loved the water, but what happened at the pool was just too much for the little girl.
"She did like to swim - loved to swim. She wasn’t scared of the water," said Hammonds.
While doctors said Lamyah’s organs improved over the days, her brain activity did not, and she was taken off life support on Monday.
Despite the tragic loss, Lamyah’s sweet spirit will live on in a new way, with her donated organs going to save other kids.
"It was a one-year-old boy who got her heart and a nine-month-old baby that got her liver," said Hammonds.
"She wasn’t going to be able to be with us," added grandmother Tanya Favorite. "If she could help someone else, that was the best thing."
The family says the funeral for Lamyah will be next weekend and there is a GoFundMe started for them to help with medical and funeral costs.