Little girl found clinging to dead woman in NY lake

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A relative of a woman found dead in an upstate New York reservoir with a little girl clinging to her say preliminary autopsy findings suggest she had heart attack, according to The Journal News.

Pamela Kaner, 59, had been found dead on Monday, floating in Lake Gleneida in Carmel, NY, with an unidentified 6-year-old girl, a friend’s daughter, holding on to her hundreds of feet from shore. Swimming in the lake is not allowed, but the girl told police Kaner had brought her into the water and was holding her before “something went wrong.” Kaner was reportedly babysitting; the girl’s mother had taken her car to a mechanic.

Police said Kaner was dead by the time they responded to an emergency call. The girl was taken to a local hospital, and was reportedly uninjured.

A friend of Kaner’s said he was surprised to hear about how the incident unfolded, given that Kaner had arthritis and had to use a cane to get around. Kaner’s sister-in-law, Terri Kaner, said she thought Pamela Kaner suffered from early onset osteoporosis and had no children of her own.

“She really enjoyed her friends’ children and interacting with them,” Terri Kaner said.

[Lake Gleneida photo via Daniel Case on Wikipedia Commons, Creative Commons Licensed]