A 3-year-old Alabama girl reportedly drowned Saturday in a grease pit outside an Auburn ice cream shop.
AL.com reports that Sadie Grace Andrews fell into the six-foot-deep grease trap outside Bruster’s Real Ice Cream at around 1 p.m. Video footage obtained by police reportedly showed the girl playing with two siblings when she fell through a lid covering one of the sludge-filled in-ground containers.
The toddler was missing for 5-10 minutes when someone found her in the grease trap and family and ice parlor employees performed CPR, Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said in a news release acquired by the Opelika-Auburn News.
Paramedics transported Andrews to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Police are treating Andrews’ death as accidental and don’t suspect foul play was involved.
As the owner of the Auburn Bruster’s, our deepest condolences go to the family of the child who tragically died…
Posted by Bruster's Ice Cream of Auburn/Opelika on Sunday, October 15, 2017
A YouCaring fundraiser to cover the toddler’s funeral expenses has accumulated more than $13,000 as of Monday afternoon.
Sadie leaves behind five siblings: Sabrina, 7; Piper, 6; Cason, 4; and twins Ryder and Judson, who will turn 2 in November.
“Sabrina and Piper said she made playing games fun,” Sadie’s mother Corrie told AL.com in an emotional phone interview. “This is really, really hard for them. Our kids love each other.”
“It’s really quiet around here without her today. She was the life of the party.”
“I’m just so thankful for the three years we had with her,” Sadie’s father Tracy Andrews said. “She taught me about being happy and loving life and loving people.”
“At 3 years old, there’s no preconceived notions. To her, everybody was good. She didn’t see the bad. She just loved people and it didn’t matter what they did.”
[Featured Image: YouCaring]
