An innocent game of hide-and-seek ended in tragedy yesterday when a 2-year-old Queens toddler drowned – apparently after deciding the family swimming pool would be a good place to hide, police sources said.
Jolie Annecco’s mom thought the game was over and that the little girl was upstairs changing her clothes, said one of the sources.
But then Penny Annecco realized her daughter wasn’t where she’d expected. “She thought the little girl was in a certain area, but she got outside,” the source said.
For weeks, said the source, the Anneccos had been teaching Jolie about swimming and trying to make her comfortable in the water. “The baby thought the pool was an appropriate place to hide,” the source said.
Jolie would have had to climb a ladder to enter the pool.
At around 10:30 a.m., Annecco found the pajama-clad toddler in the 4-foot-deep, above-ground backyard pool.
Retired firefighter Steve Lancelot, who lives across the street from the Ozone Park home, ran to the back yard after hearing the mom’s screams.
“I heard her scream my name – ‘Steve, please help me,’ ” he recounted.
“I ran out of the house, and I found the baby in the yard. She was vomiting and spitting out water, and I thought there was a little hope there.
“The mother was screaming, ‘Please tell me she’s not dead.’ ”
He tried desperately to revive the girl, and kept up the CPR for 10 minutes. “I tried to save this baby’s life, and I couldn’t,” he said, breaking down in tears.
Jolie was declared dead at Jamaica Hospital.
Annecco and her husband, Joey, have two other daughters – Ryan, 6, and Nicky, 4.
The couple helps throw a block party in the neighborhood every year, and Joey Annecco has coached the local Little League. Neighbors said the dad is a maintenance worker in city schools.
Jolie’s death was the latest misfortune to hit the Anneccos. A few years ago, their house was badly damaged in a fire, and one of their daughters is ill or disabled, neighbors said.
“They’ve had just one thing after another,” said neighbor Ann Calise.
“You have to have 100 eyes, and sometimes that’s not enough,” Calise said of the latest tragedy.
Annecco relatives turned away investigators from the city Administration for Children’s Services yesterday. An ACS spokeswoman said an investigation is under way.
“They are good people. The place is as clean as you would like,” a police source said of the Anneccos and their home.
The city requires any pool deeper than 18 inches to be surrounded by a 4-foot-tall, child-proof fence with a self-closing gate. It is not clear whether the Anneccos were in compliance.
The city rule is in line with federal Consumer Product Safety Commission standards, which further suggest that ladders to above-ground pools be secured or removed when the pool is not being used.