MERCEDES — A father drowned yesterday afternoon after he jumped into a canal to rescue his 5-year-old daughter.
The family was fishing at a canal bank along Florida Avenue when the daughter fell in.
Both the mother and the father jumped into the canal to save her, police said.
“When the officers arrived, all of them were not out of the canal,” Police Chief Olga Maldonado said.
“Two officers jumped in and they managed to get the little girl and the mother out. But the father had already swept away.”
Officers pulled him from the water about 3 p.m.
Other information was not immediately available.
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