A South Florida family is dealing with unthinkable heartbreak after their 3-year-old drowned in a canal. Police found the toddler just yards away from his home.
Kayden Petit Frere didn't talk much, but he put a smile on your face, his parents said.
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WATCH HERE“He’s very lovable,” Laeticia Elyze said about her son.
"If he sees my right now I just know he'll be happy, he'll run away and I'll run behind him,” Jean Willy Petit Frere said about his son.
It's those moments Kayden’s parents are holding onto. Laeticia Elyze said she was home Friday night when she couldn't find Kayden. She ran outside to search for him but didn’t see him. She ran back inside and called 911.
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In a statement, Miami-Dade Police said they found the toddler unresponsive in the canal near 11850 Southwest 212th Street and immediately began CPR.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue was also present and transported the toddler, who was in critical condition, to Baptist Homestead Hospital, where, unfortunately, the child passed away, the statement read.
“I'm not doing good at all,” Elyze said. "I knew he was out there."
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Kayden's father wasn’t home at the time.
"I'm very sad, I don't what to do or how to react right now,” Petiti Frere said. "I'm losing my mind right now.”
Elyze says the front door was cracked open. She believes her son wandered down the street and fell into the canal.
The family is still trying to process the tragedy. At the same time, they don't want to see another family go through a similar heartbreak.
"I just hope they put a gate here so no one else's kids die again,” Petit Frere said.
Police are still investigating the incident.
