A Louisiana doctor has been arrested six months after a seven-year-old died in a neighbourhood swimming pool, with police alleging she was close enough to save him but did not enter the water.
Sukanthini Subbiah, 48, was arrested by Orlando Police Department on Wednesday and charged with first-degree aggravated manslaughter of a child over the death of Khushil Bandi, seven. Police allege that surveillance footage shows the boy was submerged for more than seven minutes while she stood at the pool’s edge. Ms Subbiah, who was visiting her mother in Orlando, Florida, at the time of the incident on 10 April, is being held without bond in Orange County Jail. She faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
The doctor’s account
According to sworn statements Ms Subbiah gave to police, she was in Orlando with her own seven-year-old son, identified by police as DJ. He became friends with Khushil and his twin sister, who lived nearby. With the twins’ mother’s permission, Ms Subbiah said, she took the children to a pool close to their home, accompanied by her mother.
She told officers the group arrived at about 6.20pm and the three children jumped straight into the water. Shortly afterwards, she said, she noticed Khushil had been underwater for “45 seconds or so”. She said she told the other two children to fetch him, but they replied that the water was too deep. She then asked a man at the pool for help, and he jumped in and pulled out Khushil, who was unconscious.
Ms Subbiah told police about two minutes passed between her noticing the boy underwater and asking for help.
What police say the footage shows
Police said interviews with witnesses and surveillance footage told “a vastly different story”. According to investigators, the group arrived at 6.19pm, and shortly afterwards Ms Subbiah could be seen walking away from the pool as Khushil got in.
The boy swam towards the centre of the pool at 6.20pm and could be seen “turning in circles and splashing vigorously”, police said, while Ms Subbiah was still out of the camera’s frame. Seven seconds later she returned to the edge and placed a finger over her mouth in a “shushing motion”, appearing “not to notice” the boy splashing in the centre of the pool, police said.
About a minute later, Khushil stopped splashing and sank to the bottom. After another minute and a half, police said, Ms Subbiah went to the water’s edge and was seen “standing and staring at the center of the pool”. She continued to stare for another minute, they said, before DJ ran to her side and asked: “What happened to him?”
Three minutes later, police said, she entered the water but stopped at knee height. By then Khushil had been underwater for five minutes and two seconds. Almost another minute passed before she approached a man near the pool for help. He jumped in and removed the boy within 50 seconds. The other two children began screaming and said “he’s gone to bed!”, according to police.
Police put the total time between the boy being fully submerged and being pulled out at seven minutes and two seconds.
The boy’s death
Khushil was taken to hospital in critical condition. Three days after the drowning, hospital staff told police he had no brain activity, swelling in his brain and was suffering seizures. He was taken off life support on 17 April and pronounced dead. An autopsy concluded that his cause of death was complications of drowning.
Police allegations about her response
When interviewed, Ms Subbiah allegedly said she “froze” and thought she was “going to pass out” after realising Khushil had been submerged for an extended time. She also allegedly said she did not believe she was strong enough to lift him from the water, which was why she asked for help.
Police said she further admitted that, as a doctor, she would be aware that a young child holding their breath for two minutes or more “would be an extreme amount of time”.
Investigators concluded that “Subbiah had the opportunity to alter the outcome”. They said: “Had Subbiah acted when she first observed the decedent submerged for an unreasonable period of time—by immediately entering the approximately five-foot-deep water and removing him rather than directing two seven-year-old children to do so—the decedent would have been removed from the water substantially earlier.”
They added: “The significance of Subbiah’s inaction cannot be overstated. The decedent did not suffer catastrophic hypoxic brain injury because assistance was unavailable. Assistance was immediately available in the form of the adult entrusted with his care, standing at the edge of the pool.”
Why the arrest took six months
Police said the arrest came half a year after the drowning because investigators needed to establish enough evidence that Khushil’s death was preventable rather than an accident. They re-enacted the drowning to show that Ms Subbiah would clearly have been able to see the boy while he was submerged. They also interviewed witnesses, the other children present, Khushil’s parents, Ms Subbiah and her mother, and first responders.
