Six-year-old girl drowns at Lake Macbride State Park

JOHNSON COUNTY - A young girl drowned while visiting Lake Macbride State Park as part of a Cedar Rapids day care program.

The Johnson County Sheriff's Office received a call for a missing child at around 2 p.m., authorities said. Thirteen minutes later, dispatchers received a 911 call for an unresponsive child found in the water, according to a news release from Sgt. Brad Kunkel.

Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said via email the child was found in the water by a group of high school kids who were also swimming at the lake and CPR was performed.

'You can just tell that everybody was shaken up,” said Auriel Campbell, who was at the beach and said she saw people pull the girl out of the water and onto the beach.

The victim, a six-year-old girl, was transported to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where she was pronounced dead.

'It's horrible, it's horrible and painful for everybody involved,” Sgt. Kunkel said.

The girl was with about 20 other kids as part of the day program, Pulkrabek said.

'All of the rest of the kids or the day care were lining up to leave and they were crying and they were very young, probably in between ages four and eight. I just feel like that's just really hard for children that age to process death or seeing someone they know that is their age not knowing where she is and then her not breathing,” Campbell said.

The sheriff's office said foul play is not suspected.