4-Year-Old Chinese Boy Drowns While Mom Plays on Phone

Shocking footage of a boy drowning while his mother played on her phone is making the rounds online in China.

The 4-year-old boy drowned at a pool in Xianyang, Shaanxi province on Tuesday, local media report.

Surveillance video captured the incident, which showed the boy drowning while his mother stood roughly three meters away. The mother, surnamed Xiao, can be seen playing on her phone while the boy struggled in the 1.1 meter deep water for around three minutes. 

Apparently neither Xiao nor the other eight swimmers in the pool noticed the boy was drowning.

Xiao eventually put her phone down when she went to go look for her son in other parts of the pool. When she realized he had gone missing, she notified the staff to help find him.

Together they looked for the boy. After around 30 minutes of searching, they found him submerged at the bottom of the pool.

"If I had known this would happen, I would never bring him here," Xiao told a Huashang Daily reporter.

The incident took place at Spa World at the Ocean Spring Resort near Xi'an. The pool has been closed until further notice.

[Images via Daily Mail]