Masury girl dies after being pulled unresponsive from Champion pool

Staff report

AKRON

Tillasia Douglas, 4, of Masury died Wednesday in Akron Children’s Hospital, where she was taken after she was pulled unresponsive from Willow Lake swimming pool in Champion Township.

She was pulled from the central part of the pool just before 6 p.m. Tuesday. A lifeguard and another person attempted to revive her, and Champion ambulance personnel took over her care when they arrived.

Tillasia, who was not wearing a life-preserver, was found outside the area designated for small children.

Medical personnel eventually restored her pulse, but she did not breathe on her own while at ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital, Champion Fire Chief James Hickey said. She died at ACH about 2 a.m. Wednesday.

Willow Lake has a campground and 650-by-170-foot pool, featured in Guinness World Records as the world’s largest chlorinated, freshwater, concrete-bottom swimming pool.

A 5-year-old Youngstown girl also drowned at the pool in 2011, resulting in a lawsuit in which the family accused pool management of failing to maintain the premises in a “reasonably safe condition.”

The case is still pending in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.