Family Mourns 7-Year-Old Who Drowned In Lake Ontario

A Niagara-on-the-Lake family is mourning their seven-year-old boy, who drowned in the frigid waters of Lake Ontario on Tuesday.

Porter Irving Simpson had been playing on the ice with his older sister and her friend when, shortly after 5pm, they realized he was missing.

They ran to tell his dad, Ian Irving, who reportedly started a frantic search near the shoreline. Emergency crews arrived within minutes, and reinforcements from St. Catharines and the U.S. Coast Guard soon joined them.

“Half an hour later or so, they had the boats in the water, men getting ready to dive,” said area resident Ross Robinson.

“We saw about 50 volunteer firefighters. It was an extraordinarily prompt and efficient search-and-rescue effort. It unfortunately had a very sad ending.”

About 90 kilometres from shore, firefighters caught a glimpse of a red tag on Porter’s winter coat and found him in three feet of water. It’s believed he had been in the water for more than an hour.

He had no vital signs when he was taken to hospital and was pronounced dead a few hours later.

Porter’s parents asked for privacy but in a press release described their son as a “cuddly” child who loved his bike and the Ottawa Senators.

Neighbours remembered him fondly as well.

“He was a boy’s boy – like he was getting dirty and into everything,” Stephanie Tribe said on Wednesday. “Everybody in the neighbourhood knew him we all kind of keep an eye out for everybody’s kids and it definitely – it’s a tragedy.”

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