An 8-year-old girl was tragically killed in a Texas hotel swimming pool after she was sucked into a malfunctioning pipe on Saturday.
Aliyah Jaico’s body was not recovered until 13 hours after the deadly incident at the DoubleTree hotel in Houston. Her family reported her missing at 5:45 p.m. triggering a frantic search that involved police and volunteers.
“We mobilized a lot of people. We had people actually searching outside and in different rooms and everything,” Texas EquuSearch Founder Tim Miller said.
Jaico’s body was found trapped inside a narrow pipe at 11:30 p.m. after officials drained the pool and used a small remote camera attached to a pole to look into the pipe.
Miller said investigators believe the malfunctioning pipe sucked water in instead of pumping it out into the pool.
“Many of us had to wipe tears from our eyes,” Miller said. “I never, ever thought in a million years it was going to end up as bad as it ended up.”
“There is a grieving family out there, and it is going to be a long, painful healing process over this one.”
