LARIMER COUNTY, Colo. – The young child hospitalized after being found unresponsive Monday morning off Highway 34 was a 23-month-old girl and has died, the sheriff’s office said Monday afternoon.
Larimer County deputies were dispatched out to the 1500 block of W. Highway 34, just east of Drake, shortly before 9:30 a.m. on a report that a child under the age of 5 was missing from a nearby home.
The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office said Monday afternoon the child’s mother called 911 when she found the girl was missing. She had last seen the girl 30 minutes earlier while they were sleeping, the sheriff’s office said.
“The mother awoke, found the door to the residence ajar, and the child was gone,” Larimer County Sheriff’s Office spokesman David Moore said in a news release provided to Denver7.
Moore said the girl was found about 400 yards downriver from the home after first responders arrived around 30 minutes after the original 911 call.
The girl was given CPR and then taken by an ambulance to an area hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The sheriff’s office said the investigation into the incident continues, and said the county coroner’s office would release the child’s identity and cause and manner of death.
The section of Highway 34 along which the girl went missing and was found is currently closed between Loveland and Drake for the holiday season.