The eight-year-old girl who drowned at a Houston hotel chain after being sucked into a foot-wide pipe in the pool has been identified.
Eight-year-old Aliyah Jaico went missing Saturday while swimming with her family at the DoubleTree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow on the city’s northwest side. Her disappearance was reported at 9:45 pm.
Search and rescue teams determined that the little girl went underwater and never resurfaced. Her body was found trapped in a narrow pipe hours later.
According to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, the preliminary cause of the girl’s death was “drowning and mechanical asphyxiation” and appeared to be an accident.
Aliyah’s devastated mother, Daniela Jaico, shared a heartbreaking selfie taken in the pool on Facebook, captioning it “our last photo.”
Aliyah Jaico appears in the photo posing next to a pool. The girl’s “small hand and part of her body” were the first to appear, as they were “trapped” deep inside the pipe, authorities said.
Her last photo: Aliyah Jaico, eight years old, with her mother Daniela Jaico in a last photo believed to have been taken at the pool where she died.
‘They say we all have our destiny marked…but I can’t understand why yours was like that,’ Jaico wrote in Spanish.
‘Thank you my love for the eight years you gave me by your side. Thank you girl for teaching me what love and a noble heart are.’
In a news release, Houston police described the hotel’s pool as a “lazy river style pool.”
Among the first to respond to the scene was Tim Miller, founder of Texas EquuSearch, a nonprofit search and rescue organization.
‘We mobilized a lot of people. We had people searching outside and in different rooms and all that,” Miller said. ABC13 Houston.
Officers searched the hotel while the nonprofit organization reviewed security footage along with the Houston Police Department. They discovered that Aliyah had disappeared underwater.
The pool was drained and a small remote camera from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was attached to a pole and sent nearly 20 feet into the pipes.
Equipped with the camera and a scent hound, rescuers made the gruesome discovery around 11:30 p.m.
The cause of death of little Aliyah Jaico was ‘drowning and mechanical asphyxiation’ and apparently it was an accident
An eight-year-old girl died after being sucked into a pool pipe (pictured) at the DoubleTree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow.
Tributes poured in for the little girl, pictured in her early years.
The Houston Fire Department recovered the eight-year-old boy’s body after a 13-hour effort.
The girl’s devastated mother wrote: ‘Thank you, my love, for the eight years you gave me by your side. Thank you girl for teaching me what love and a noble heart are.
The pool at DoubleTree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow
The girl’s “small hand and part of her body” were the first to appear, as they were “trapped” deep inside the pipe, Miller said.
He explained that the pipe was not working properly and was sucking water instead of pumping it.
First responders from the Houston Fire Department recovered Aliyah’s body. The effort lasted around 13 hours.
Shortly after, Aliyah’s mother posted a series of baby photos on Facebook.
“I hope to see you again one day and you will continue to look at me and get that big smile that spread joy,” he wrote.
‘You always gave yourself to love with your noble heart. I will love you for the whole eternity.
‘You are the most beautiful thing that God has given me and after every battle we went through together, we did not win this one.’
Aliyah Jaico (right) is shown playing in the water on another vacation.
The girl was initially reported missing, but rescue teams reviewed security footage and determined she had gone underwater and never resurfaced.
This is not the first time such an accident has occurred.
In June 2007, six-year-old Abigail Taylor was playing in a public wading pool at the Minneapolis Golf Club when she sat on a bad drain.
The suction force tore the girl’s small intestine from her body.
Despite nine months of medical care that included 16 surgeries and multiple organ transplants, Abigail died with her family at her side in March of the following year.
More recently, in 2021, 10-year-old Danika Ross was sucked down an irrigation pipe into an artificial pond at a Washington state winery.
According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by her family, Danika was swimming with her brothers when she was dragged into the pipe, described as “not grated” and “larger than necessary.”
His body was “pushed down a 90-degree curve” and “transported nearly 70 feet uphill by mechanical pump mechanism.”
The Grant County Coroner determined that Danika died from asphyxiation due to drowning and torso compression due to pressure in the pipe.
The trial was postponed after an appeal was filed in December 2022 and is scheduled to begin this year.