A Florida City mother is remembering her son two days after he drowned in a lake in SW Miami-Dade.
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According to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, 14-year-old Marcus Sanders drowned near North Redland Road and Northwest 12th Street on Saturday night.
NBC6 on Monday spoke exclusively with Sander’s mother.
“He was kind,” Jazmine Sanders said. He had a big hear and he loved everybody. Marcus had a light in him that shined so bright. Marcus wanted to go to college.”
Jazmine shared a photo with NBC6 of Marcus smiling during his graduation in May from Homestead Middle School.
It would be the last picture he and his mother took together.
Jazmine said that Marcus and some of his friends went swimming in a lake near North Redland Road and Northwest 12th Street, which is a few blocks away from their home.
“He just decided to take a day to go get in some water, and it cost him his life,” she said.
He was supposed to come right back, but later that night, at around 7 p.m., Jasmine said they heard sirens and saw ambulances rushing to the lake.
“My kids were riding around on their scooters, and they saw the ambulance over there, and they said, ‘Mom, the ambulance, the ambulance,'” she said. “They’re there for Marcus.”
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Jazmine said that when she went to check it out, her heart sank.
“I prayed it wasn’t my baby, but I’m looking, and I see all the friends that he was with,” she said.
Marcus was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, but did not survive.
“They were trying to bring him back, but he was down there too long,” she said.
Officials said that within an hour of that incident, they got a call about a second near-drowning at the same lake.
Another 14-year-old was found, and he had to be airlifted to the hospital, where he remains in critical condition.
Jazmine said she doesn’t know who the second teen is
She told NBC6 that she wants her son to be remembered as a go-getter who had a village of people who loved him.
She sends this message to others to hold on tight to the people they love;
“Start loving on each more, taking care of each other more,” she said.
Jazmine said Marcus had been taking swimming lessons for the past few years, and she’s not exactly sure what caused him to drown.
Officials have not released the name of the teen who is still in the hospital in critical condition.
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