JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Another child in Jacksonville has died. She was found in a retention pond in a Jacksonville apartment complex Tuesday night.
Police responded to a call around 8:30 p.m. regarding a missing child at Bennett Creek Apartments off Bowden Road.
When they found 2-year-old Melani Mixon, she was unresponsive in a retention pond on the property. She was taken to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.
"This shouldn’t be happening to another family," Michael Haggard told First Coast News. He is an attorney in Florida and he’s also on the board of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance.
Haggard said retention pond deaths involving children in Florida are on the rise. He said the solution to reducing that number is to make fences around retention ponds mandatory. They already are for swimming pools.
"In Florida now, residential pools have to have gates and barriers that are built after 2001," Haggard explained. "And we should have the same for retention ponds."
He and others have pushed to create laws for that in different states, but to no avail when it comes to retention ponds.
Why? Haggard believes that "apartment owners think that the aesthetics are more important that saving a child’s life. And we know that barriers and gates work. They absolutely prevent drownings of small children."
First Coast News contacted the apartment complex management where Tuesday's incident took place. They said they'll work with the proper authorities. When asked about setting up a fence or gate around the pond, we were told that conversation is "going up the ladder".
The City of Jacksonville has a policy that requires five feet of natural growth around the edges of retention ponds that are on city property. However, this latest incident – like many of the recent cases – took place in an apartment complex or neighborhood.
It’s not been revealed how the child made her way to the pond.