Father Attempts to Teach 23-Month-Old Daughter to Swim, You Won’t Believe How..: Disturbing Video Goes Viral


Corey Edmund McCarthy thought it was high time his 23-month-old daughter, Mia, learned how to swim. However, the disturbing way he went about teaching her has landed him behind bars.

According to the Daily Mail, a surveillance camera captured McCarthy, 23, throwing the toddler into a Phoenix swimming pool. The footage shows McCarthy holding his daughter face-up and throwing her into the pool. Then, a woman can be seen rushing to the side of the pool where the child was thrown to aid her before she sunk to the bottom. The Phoenix Police Department also revealed that the footage showed the child unattended by the pool for almost a half hour. The court documents stated that a call was placed to the department by the child’s mother.

Since the disturbing incident was taped by a surveillance camera, he didn’t deny that he’d done so. However, he probably made matters worse when he explained why he did it. Edmund informed police officials that he threw his daughter into the pool because she had put her 5-week-old puppy into a pool, and, unfortunately, it drowned. He stated that the swim lesson was a preventive measure so his daughter would understand the consequences of playing around water without knowing how to swim.

However, the child’s mother, Samantha, feels otherwise. She gave her opinion of McCarthy’s actions, explaining that it was more of a punishment than anything else.

“I am very angry and I’m very hurt and I just hope that my kids are going to be OK from this,” she said. “People make mistakes, but this is past a poor decision and a mistake. This is a child.” She went on to recount what the footage displayed. “Then you see him taunting her, like throwing her like he’s gonna, then he’s not, throwing her like he’s gonna, then he’s not,” Samantha said. “What people don’t know is also in the beginning of the video, he hoses her down with a water hose to kind of torture her that way.”

McCarthy was charged with two counts of child abuse. The charge was based on disciplinary standards in the state of Arizona. Disciplinary actions have to be considered reasonable without ill intent or malice. Police officials definitely felt that McCarthy’s actions were totally unreasonable.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, formal swimming lessons are not recommended for children until they are four years old. Studies have shown that children are not “developmentally ready” ready to swim until that age. Another study, Children’s Readiness for Learning Front Crawl Swimming, only edified police officials’ judgment of McCarthy’s unreasonable disciplinary action, as it revealed “drowning rates are the highest among children ages 1 through 2 years.”

McCarthy is still in custody. However, he is currently in the infirmary after being beaten up by other prisoners.

[Image via Bing]

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