PICTURED: Houston girl, eight, who died after being sucked into 1ft-long pipe in Hilton hotel swimming pool
The eight-year-old girl who drowned at a Houston chain hotel after being sucked into a one-foot-wide pipe in the swimming pool has been identified.
Aliyah Jaico, eight, vanished Saturday while swimming with her family at the DoubleTree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow on the city’s northwest side. She was reported missing at 9:45 pm.
Search and rescue teams determined that the little girl went underwater and never resurfaced. Her body was found wedged in a narrow pipe hours later.
According to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Science, the girl’s preliminary cause of death was ‘drowning and mechanical asphyxia’ and appeared to be an accident.
Aliyah’s devastated mother, Daniela Jaico, shared a heartbreaking selfie taken at the pool to Facebook, captioning it ‘our last photo.’
Aliyah Jaico is pictured posing by a pool. The girl’s ‘little hand and part of her body’ were the first to appear, having been ‘wedged’ deep inside the pipe, authorities said
Their last photo: Aliyah Jaico, eight, is pictured with her mother Daniela Jaico in a final photo believed to have been taken at the pool where she died
‘They say we all have our destiny marked…but I can’t understand why yours was like this,’ Jaico wrote in Spanish.
‘Thank you, my love, for the eight years you gave me by your side. Thank you, my girl, for teaching me what love is and a noble heart.’
In a press release, Houston police described the pool at the hotel as a ‘lazy river style swimming pool.’
Among the first to respond to the scene was Tim Miller, the founder of Texas EquuSearch, a search and rescue nonprofit.
‘We mobilized a lot of people. We had people actually searching outside and in different rooms and everything,’ Miller told ABC13 Houston.
Officers combed the hotel while the nonprofit reviewed security footage alongside the Houston Police Department. They discovered that Aliyah had disappeared underwater.
The pool was drained, and a small remote camera from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was attached to a pole and sent nearly 20 feet inside the pipes.
Equipped with the camera and a scent tracking bloodhound, rescuers made the gruesome discovery around 11:30 pm.
Little Aliyah Jaico’s cause of death was ‘drowning and mechanical asphyxia’ and appeared to be an accident
An eight-year-old girl died after being sucked into a swimming pool pipe (pictured) at the DoubleTree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow
Tributes poured in for the little girl, who is pictured in her earlier years
The Houston Fire Department retrieved the eight-year-old’s body after a 13-hour effort
The girl’s devastated mother wrote: ‘Thank you, my love, for the eight years you gave me by your side. Thank you, my girl, for teaching me what love is and a noble heart’
The girl’s ‘little hand and part of her body’ were the first to appear, having been ‘wedged’ deep inside the pipe, Miller said.
He explained that the pipe had malfunctioned and was sucking water in rather than pumping it out.
Responders from the Houston Fire Department retrieved Aliyah’s body. The effort took around 13 hours.
Shortly after, Aliyah’s mother posted a series of baby photos to Facebook.
‘I hope to see you again one day and you’ll keep looking at me and you’ll get that big smile that was contagious with joy,’ she wrote.
‘You gave yourself to love always with your heart so noble. I will love you for all eternity. You are the most beautiful thing God has given me and after every battle we went through together we didn’t win this one.’
Aliyah Jaico (right) is pictured playing in the water on a separate vacation
The girl was initially reported missing, but rescue teams reviewed security footage and determined that she had gone underwater and never resurfaced
This is not the first time such an accident has happened.
In June 2007, six-year-old Abigail Taylor was playing in a public wading pool at Minneapolis Golf Club when she sat on a poorly maintained drain.
The sucking force ripped the little girl’s small intestine from her body.
Despite nine months of medical care including 16 surgeries and multiple organ transplants, Abigail died with her family by her side in March of the following year.
Most recently, in 2021, 10-year-old Danika Ross was sucked into an irrigation pipe inside a man-made pond at a Washington state winery.
According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by her family, Danika was swimming with her siblings when she was pulled into the pipe, described as ‘not grated’ and ‘larger than necessary.’
Her body was ‘thrust down into a 90-degree bend’ and ‘transported nearly 70 feet up the hill via the mechanical pump mechanism.’
The Grant County Coroner determined that Danika died by asphyxiation from drowning and compression of the torso due to pressure in the pipe.
The trial was postponed after an appeal was filed in December 2022 and is slated to begin this year.
