6-year-old boy dead, 3-year-old girl in coma after being swept away in river

Brave kids to jump in to save the 3 year old, so sad the boy died. I hope the little girl makes a full recovery.

Parents????

@MH, as someone who lives in Japan, it has long been established through actual witnessed events that a large number of Japanese parents seemingly leave their children's safety and well-being to the unknowable and fickle fingers of a human abstract called 'fate'. As you can see, day-in day-out, it doesn't work very well in terms of securing a child's life, health and safety.

So sad! and WHY oh why were these kids by a RIVER without any ADULT supervision!! RIP??

I've always said that, parenting in Japan was based on a sink or swing mentality. Sad end to a day at the park for these kids.

@YongYang

Well, some of incidents that we often see in the news where kids fall off of balconies or from the top of buildings, can be seen as unfortunate accidents. You can't babysit kids 24/7 to make sure that they don't get hurt, and sometimes the best that a parent can do is to tell the child to not play on top of buildings or on balconies. However, in this case you have 2 fairly young children and a toddler playing near a moving body a water. What parent thinks this an okay thing to do unsupervised?

And although I commend the other children's efforts in trying to save the poor toddler, their efforts should have not been necessary. An adult should have been nearby to prevent the kids from falling in.

@Mirai,

The unfortunate reasoning is what doesnt teach a lesson. Young kids dont die in these kinds of situations do to unfortunate incidents they have died do to a lack of responsibility and supervision. Its just plain stupidity on behalf of the adults in charge. Theyll not be held accountable either.

A 3-year old is way too little to be out and about. At that age I was restricted to our yard of supervised play in parks. Kids that small are simply too uncoordinated.

Young children should never be permitted to "watch" themselves.

This will sound like a terrible thing to say, but here goes.

I'm constantly amazed at how parents don't think - even though they have such high levels of education.

A 15 yr old babysitter 100 years ago wouldn't let a group like that play next to a river. I assume the oldest person in the group was 8? Otherwise an older person would have gone in to help.

So, 10 kids and I assume the youngest is 3 and the oldest is 8 playing next to a river. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

You can argue that the parents probably told them all to be careful ...but it obviously didn't work.

Now the poor girl will grow up learning about the boy.

But in order to get something good out of this. If my son died at 6 I'd rather him die helping a 3 yr old in water than some other accident. Hope his parents can have some comfort knowing that he was a champion.

Come on parents. You have to think about possible scenarios. How can people get through 12 or possibly 16 years of schooling and not realise stuff like this.

(yes, I have my doubts about formal learning)

OMG..it's happening so often here... Japan need to change parenting culture..

children playing by them selfs, in a park or play area, that ok with me, but by a river bank? at that age???? dam stupidity if you ask me!! they should be supervised by an adult at that age.

Can anybody tell us WHERE THE PARENTS where?? What were they doing?? I hope they were not just enjoying the lovely weather, having a BBQ, which in Japan means lots of ALCOHOL! I can just imagine, yeah hunny, give me some more beer, shochu etc..oh, by the way, WHERE HAVE OUR 3 year old kids been for the last 5 HOURS??? I really do hope and pray this was NOT THE CASE!! Anyway, RIP poor 6 year old and do hope the one in a coma can survive and that these idiot parents REPENT for their own selfishness and stupidity!!

That girl who jumped in without hesitation deserves a reward. That's amazing bravery.

And how about the fact that probably 95% of Japanese do NOT know how to perform CPR - because they are not taught in school? Pathetic. They just stand there staring at the victim waiting for the grossly incompetent ambulance staff to arrive....eventually.

Witnessed it more than once. Once, a woman in a kimono in the dead of summer got off the train at my station and fainted - bashing (and cracking open) her head on the concrete and falling unconscious. Everyone just stood around her and stared. I TRIED to help, but was sternly told that I should "not touch the victim and just wait for the ambulance to arrive." (dumb gaijin) No, CPR would not have helped in this case, but thus is the mentality (and ignorance) here. Everyone just standing around chewing on grass, looking at each other, and going *baaaaa".

Nonetheless, generally, I still love it here. Weird.

I have a 2 year old and when she becomes 3, there is no bloody way she is hanging around a river, with friends or not, unsupervised.

Maybe some people on here don't know but a lot of riverbanks in Japan are set up with playgrounds and are even large enough to play soccer or baseball. With all the stories though about kids being swept away by rivers, adult supervision is needed in that case. An 8 year old may be wise enough to be responsible but letting a 3 year year old out there is inexcusable.

RIP to the 6 year old boy. He is a hero in my eyes though he was also a bit young to be out there.