Fort Lauderdale

‘He's at the bottom': Police heard jumping into pool in 911 call of boy's Fort Lauderdale drowning

Ryan Amichette, 8, identified as victim of Monday night drowning

NBC Universal, Inc.

Police are heard jumping into a pool in Fort Lauderdale to pull out a young boy who died in a drowning in a dramatic new 911 call from the incident.

The 911 call obtained by NBC6 on Wednesday details the response after 8-year-old Ryan Amichette was discovered in the pool in the 1100 block of Northwest 4th Avenue Monday night.

"I just woke up, looked outside, saw some little shoes by my pool, and there's a little kid at the bottom of my pool," a homeowner tells a 911 dispatcher in the call.

"Do you know whose kid this is?" the dispatcher asks.

"I've never seen him before, we've never had a stray child in here. I see his clothes are right here by the gate and then his shoes are over by the pool and he's at the bottom, floating, looking at the bottom," the caller responds, before sighing "My goodness."

An 8-year-old boy who drowned in a backyard pool in Fort Lauderdale has been identified as authorities investigate how he ended up there.

"Do you know how long he's been there?" the dispather asks.

"I don't," the caller responds, as sirens are heard in the background

"How old does the patient look?" the dispatcher asks.

"Five-ish, I would guess," the homeowner responds, as police are heard arriving at the pool.

"Where, where, where?" a police officer shouts at the homeowner.

"Right there, right there!" the caller says, before a splash is heard from the officer jumping in the pool to get Amichette.

"They're here now," the caller tells the dispatcher. "They've got him, police have got him, they dived in and got him."

An officer can then be heard questioning the homeowner.

"You have no idea who this kid is?" the officer asks.

"Never saw the boy, I believe. Never had a stray child in here," the homeowner responds. "I just woke up from a nap and I was coming out…and so I saw these shoes here and I came out, I walked over here, I saw those clothes right there and I looked in here and that's when I saw him."

Amichette was rushed to Broward Health Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

Ryan Amichette
Family Photo
Ryan Amichette

Police later confirmed that Amichette didn't live at the home and the homeowner didn't know him.

In a statement on Tuesday, police said they believe Amichette's death appears to be accidental.

Detectives are still trying to determine how and why he entered the backyard and the pool.

Amichette's brother said the boy had gone missing after school. He said a babysitter was supposed to pick him up from school but that didn't happen.

"We had been looking for him for almost like three hours and all the way up to 6 and then I see a lot of police around the corner and then I ran to the police, I said 'y’all seen a little boy?' And then the police said 'we just found a little boy in the pool,'" brother Gibson Severe said.

The babysitter told the family she had seen Amichette walking with other kids and she called to him but he kept walking, Severe said.

It's unclear if he was alone or with other children when he made his way to the pool.

The pool is shared by a group of four different buildings and there's a fence around the property.

Contact Us