Boy, 6, died saving sister

Child drowned in grandparents' pool

A 6-year-old boy who drowned Saturday afternoon near Smithfield apparently was trying to save his 3-year-old sister.

James Alton Barbour Jr. was pulled out of his grandparents' half-drained pool a short time after family members found his sister, Alona, in a little more than a foot of water in the shallow end. The children's aunt, Kristal Kelley, said Alona told them James had pushed her to the shallow end of the pool. He then apparently lost his footing and slipped beneath more than 5 feet of stagnant water.

"She just kept saying, 'He saved me, he saved me,' " Kelley said through tears. "He's our little hero."

James' mother, Tammy Barbour, had been packing people into a PT Cruiser to go for a ride Saturday afternoon when she noticed that the two children were missing.

Then she saw the gate to the pool behind her parents' home at 324 Cloverdale Drive flung wide open. A crack in the in-ground pool had caused a leak, leaving the pool out of commission.

Barbour bolted to the backyard, screaming for others inside the home to follow.

Grandfather Ron Ford Sr. spotted James, lying motionless in the pool's deep end. He pulled the 6-year-old from the pool and began CPR. But James was pronounced dead a short time later at Johnston Memorial Hospital.

No charges are expected to be filed in the case, Johnston County Sheriff's Department officials have said.

The tragedy of James' death is compounded by wounds still fresh from the loss of another young family member.

Sean Paddock, a cousin of James and also a grandson of Ron and Debbie Ford, had been in the Wake County foster care system and then was adopted. On Feb. 26, 2006, Sean suffocated after being tightly bound with blankets by his adoptive mother, Lynn Paddock. Authorities said Sean's two biological siblings, being cared for by the same family, were covered in bruises.

Lynn Paddock remains jailed, facing a first-degree murder charge in Sean's death and felony child abuse charges in the others' injuries. She faces possible life imprisonment if convicted.

The case sparked a custody battle for the surviving children.

Debbie Ford said Sunday that she and her husband, Ron, have gone broke trying to win custody of Sean's older siblings, and that they find paying for a funeral right now daunting. It's going to be impossible for her daughter, she said.

Tammy and her husband, James Barbour Sr., moved with their children to North Carolina from Illinois last month.

Tammy Barbour recently began a job at a Waffle House, and her husband is working with a plumbing company.

"We don't have the money to bury this baby," Debbie Ford said.

The family said donations are being taken at the Waffle House where Tammy Barbour works.

A collection for the family was also taken Sunday at Wilson's Mills Baptist Church in Wilson's Mills.

After Sunday's service, church members dropped by with the collection, along with several bags of cooked food for the family.

Family members said Ron Ford Sr. has stayed inside the home, taking the death of a second grandchild in less than two years very hard.

"He's a mess," Kelley, the aunt, said of Ron Ford. "This is unreal. To live it again so soon ... is just too much."

Until further notice, pools are off limits for their family, Kelley said.

"My husband went to our house last night and took down everything," she said. "We have an above-ground pool. He took down the ladder ... everything he could."

Anthony Kelley, Kristal Kelley's husband, said he urges anybody with a pool to make sure nobody can get to it when it's unattended.

"Check your pool," he said. "Check it twice. Check it three times."

Debbie Ford said if she could afford it, the pool in her backyard -- now completely drained -- would be filled in with dirt and covered with concrete.

"We just don't want to look at it now," she said.