8-year-old girl found dead in pipe after swimming in Texas hotel pool

Houston police are probing the tragic demise of an 8-year-old girl, whose lifeless body was discovered inside a large pipe in the lazy river at a Houston hotel where she had been swimming with her family.

Aliyah Jaico’s passing on Saturday was determined to be an accidental drowning by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. The Institute reported that she succumbed to drowning and mechanical asphyxia, occurring when an object or external force obstructs breathing. The autopsy report is still pending.

According to authorities, the girl was found “inside a large pipe in the pool area” and was pronounced dead by paramedics.

A lawsuit filed on Monday against the hotel by her mother, Jose Daniela Jaico Ahumada, alleges that the child was “violently sucked” into an unsecured opening in the pool’s flow system, measuring 12 to 16 inches wide.

“They had to break up concrete in order to extract her, cut pipe, it was absolutely horrific,” Richard Nava, Ahumada’s attorney, stated on Tuesday at a press conference.

The family had been staying at the Doubletree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow, which is listed as a defendant in the lawsuit alongside Hilton Worldwide Holdings. A spokesperson for Hilton expressed deep sorrow over the girl’s demise and clarified that the property operates independently under a third-party owner. The spokesperson also mentioned that Hilton had not been served with a lawsuit and refrained from commenting on ongoing legal matters.

A legal firm representing the hotel ownership, as stated by the Hilton spokesperson, did not respond immediately to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Ahumada asserted in the lawsuit that she had rented the room for her family to enjoy a day of swimming, an activity Aliyah dearly cherished.