A northern Virginia family is mourning a 7-year-old girl who drowned in a Lorton swimming pool Monday.
Fatmata Kamara, known as Effey, spent Memorial Day at the Lorton Station community pool with friends. About 4 p.m. her mother, Aminata Porter, was called to the pool.
Effey didn’t know how to swim and somehow wound up underwater.
Romy Hopper, a military spouse trained in CPR who was at the pool with her husband and children, helped the lifeguard and another mother pull Effey from the water and try to resuscitate her.
“I wanted so badly to save her,” she said.
Paramedics took over and took the Lorton Station Elementary School second-grader to a hospital, but they could not revive her.
“They tried, they did their best, but it wasn’t enough,” Effey’s mother said.
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Police said they don’t see anything suspicious about the drowning.
Hopper created a GoFundMe to help the family with funeral expenses for Effey.
