Two-year-old boy slips into well, dies

The child, Saravanan, was playing with his twin Shiva outside their house in Ambattur. Their mother Vijayalakshmi, was inside the house when the incident occurred.

A two-year-old boy died in Kallikuppam, Ambattur on Thursday morning, after he slipped and fell into a 40-feet deep well while playing with his twin brother. Fire service and rescue personnel managed to retrieve the child’s body, after his mother saw it floating in the well.

Ambattur police personnel said the brothers, Saravanan and Shiva, were playing near their house on MGR Street in Malar Nagar on Thursday morning. Their mother, Vijayalakshmi was busy with household work. Their father Babu, a construction worker had left the house early that morning for work.

Around 11 a.m., Vijayalakshmi realised that both the boys were missing and began looking for them in the neighbourhood. “She managed to find Shiva playing on the street next to theirs and asked him about Saravanan. The child told her that Saravanan had been playing with him until a short while ago, but had then disappeared. Vijayalakshmi kept on looking for Saravanan in and around the locality. When she could not find him, she remembered the well behind their house and ran back to look in there. She saw Saravanan floating inside,” said an investigating officer with the Ambattur police.

Vijayalakshmi raised an alarm and neighbours rushed in but no one could enter the well as it was overgrown with thick shrubs and its side walls were damaged. Residents then called the fire service department and firemen from the Ambattur Estate station rushed in. They managed to get the child out, but he had died. Police said the probable cause was a head injury suffered in the fall.

“The wall around the well is barely two-feet high. The boy was playing nearby and could have slipped and fallen inside,” the officer added.

Saravanan’s body was sent for a post-mortem examination to Government Kilpauk Hospital and handed over to his parents in the evening.