The siblings of a 2-year-old who almost drowned in a drainage canal Tuesday have been removed from their mother’s care, the children’s grandmother told 9News Wednesday.
Robbie Aramburo remained in critical condition at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood on Wednesday night. He was pulled from Bowles Lateral Ditch along West Belleview Avenue near South Wadsworth Boulevard before noon Tuesday, about 200 yards from where he wandered off from his mother and grandmother.
Barbara Cossins told 9News that Denver Human Services had removed Robbie’s two brothers, ages 6 months and 7 years, and his sister, 5, from the home of her daughter, Erica Aramburo.
She said the children have been placed with a family member for at least a week while the social-services agency investigates.
“This was all just a terrible, terrible accident,” Cossins told the TV station. “I thought Robbie was with her. She thought Robbie was with me.”
Benny Samuels, a spokeswoman for Denver Human Services, said she could not confirm or deny an investigation, citing privacy rules.
Cossins “does not want to talk anymore,” said an unidentified woman who answered the phone at her condo Wednesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, one of the heroes of Tuesday’s rescue, 40-year-old Ernest Gallegos, was receiving praise from many quarters.
The unemployed restaurant cook was on his way to catch a bus when he spotted what he thought to be a doll bobbing in the fast-flowing creek.
He feared a child would try to retrieve the toy and fall in the creek, so he intended to wade in, take it out and leave it on the bank, his mother, Katheryn Bueno said.
He pulled Robbie from the water and ran to the clubhouse of a nearby apartment complex yelling for help, just as a crew of West Metro Fire Rescue paramedics happened to be driving by on their way to lunch.
Gallegos does not have a phone, but his mother said hers had been ringing all day with family members and friends proud of her son.
“Everybody has been saying he really did a wonderful thing,” she said.
Gallegos has three grown children and two grandchildren, Bueno said.
Several people contacted The Denver Post offering to interview Gallegos for a job, and one offered to replace the money in the wallet Gallegos lost when he jumped into the creek.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174
