Marianne Vasquez, an 11-month-old baby, drowned at her family’s home in the Belama Phase 3 Area of Belize City. Somehow, the infant fell inside a bucket which contained water, and she lost her life because it.
Police say that at around 10 p.m. on Tuesday, December 11, 2018, they went to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, where they found the baby lying on a bed receiving medical attention from an on-duty doctor. Minutes later, the doctor pronounced her dead.
Initial police investigations have revealed that at around 8:50 p.m., the baby’s mother, 24-year-old Marina Torres was in the kitchen of her house located on Albert Hoy Street in Belama Phase 3. She was preparing food, when she realized that her baby was missing. She looked around for her, and inside the wash room, she found her face down in a bucket which was quarter-filled with water. The baby was motionless, unresponsive, and not breathing; she had swallowed too much water.
She was rushed to the KHMH for emergency medical treatment, and by 10:04 p.m., the doctors had to concede that they could not do anything else to revive her.
Family members of Baby Marianne told the press that while her mom, Torres, was cooking, she asked her son, the baby’s older brother, to take her into the bedroom, away from the heat of the stove. They were playing together in the room, until her mom asked her brother to run quickly to the shop to purchase an item. It was a few minutes later that the baby’s absence was noticed, and they became concerned when no one could find her. They searched the house until they heard Torres scream out in despair. She discovered her baby inside the bucket, and she was unresponsive.
Baby Marianne’s lips were blue, and so her dad tried to resuscitate her, and he was not getting much progress, they rushed her to the KHMH. Unfortunately, the doctors did what they could for the infant, but they could not save her life.
The baby’s dad, Daren Vasquez, told the press that he is aware that there are members of the public who are harshly criticizing his wife, the baby’s mom, assuming that she is a poor or neglectful mother, or that she is somehow directly responsible for the tragedy. He asserted that this is the furthest thing from the truth, and that her attention was focused on household chores for only a few minutes, when the baby gave everyone the slip, and ended up in the washroom.
Vasquez said, “Please stop judging my wife, because you never know when your turn may come.”
