Girl, 5, nearly drowns at Trumbull County water park

Staff report

CHAMPION

A 5-year-old girl was flown by helicopter in critical condition to Akron Children’s Hospital after she nearly drowned Sunday afternoon in a giant-sized swimming pool at a popular local campground.

Lifeguards already had rescued the girl about 4:30 p.m. at the Willow Lake Park campground before fire department paramedics arrived, said Fire Lt. Matt Balut.

Lifeguards — and then fire department paramedics — performed CPR on the girl before the paramedics drove her to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren, from which she was flown to Akron Children’s, he said. The campground is at 6863 Mahoning Ave. N.W., near the Bristol-Champion Township line.

Citing a federal patient-care privacy law, Balut declined to identify the girl.

Calling itself “a unique water playground,” the campground says on its website that its pool has been featured in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world’s largest automatically chlorinated, freshwater, concrete-bottom swimming pool.

Holding more than 6.8 million gallons of water, the 650-by-170-foot pool, which ranges in depth from 2 to 14 feet, can accommodate up to 4,800 swimmers, the website says. It features three diving boards, three sliding boards, three docks and a Tarzan swing, the campground says.