Sunday night outing ends in drowning
Girl, 4, dies in pool at Ol' MacDonald's Farm
By RONA KOBELL
ronak@npgco.com
St Joseph News-Press
Four years ago this month, Lisa Simbro wept after learning her cousin had drowned in the Missouri River. Tragedy again engulfed the 29-year-old St. Joseph mother of four Sunday evening, when her daughter drowned in a swimming pool at Ol' MacDonald's Farm.
Emma Danielle Simbro, 4, was pronounced dead at 8:24 p.m. Sunday in Heartland Regional Medical Center's emergency room, said Andrew County Coroner Terry Powell. Mr. Powell said the girl drowned when she drifted into the deep end. "Basically, she was unnoticed for a while," Mr. Powell said. "When they started looking for her, they found her at the bottom of the pool."
Mr. Powell said the pool has no lifeguard and a sign reminding people to swim at their own risk.
In his five and a half years as a coroner, he said, nobody ever has drowned in that pool.
At first, Lisa Simbro said, she thought a swim before bedtime might help the children fall asleep later. But, after suggesting it, she said she "just kept thinking I didn't want to go to the pool."
But she'd already mentioned the idea to the kids, and she and a friend packed a picnic and headed for the farm. Between them, they brought eight children.
Mrs. Simbro said she had gone to the bathroom while her friend watched the eight children and four others playing in the pool. Emma had gotten out of the pool when her mother did, but slipped back into the shallow end, Mrs. Simbro said. She said the friend "didn't notice Emma had gotten in over her head."
The guilt, Mrs. Simbro said, is unfathomable. "It was the worst thing you could possibly feel," she sobbed. She said Emma, the middle of three sisters, was an adorable child who loved to cook especially scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes.
"If she burned herself, she'd give her hand a quick kiss and keep cooking," Mrs. Simbro said.
The Simbros had adopted a baby boy and had just baptized him earlier that day.
A religious family, the Simbros sent young Emma to St. Mary's Catholic Church Cathedral Pre-School in St. Joseph. She had a lot of friends at school and especially loved trains, requesting a birthday party with a train theme two years in a row.
Named after her uncle, a local railroader, young Emma loved playing with her 18-foot plastic train track. Her mother said she was planning a train trip for Emma and her uncle, who had called her "the railroader for the next generation."
Obituary, Page B2
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1993 - 1997 (4 years)
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