The youngest daughter of Ave Maria University's dean of students died after she was pulled from the pond behind her family's home, and the town is burying her on Saturday

Ave Maria University said this week that the youngest daughter of its dean of students died after drowning in the pond behind her family's home, and the fire chief who ran the call is asking Southwest Florida families to look at the water behind their own houses.

Two newsrooms have now read the Collier County Sheriff's Office report on the call. Gulf Coast News reported it first, and the Naples Daily News gives the fullest account of it: deputies were sent to a home in Ave Maria at about 3.25 p.m. on Sunday, August 16, after a report of a 1-year-old child who had drowned. Gulf Coast News, a day earlier, placed the call on Saturday afternoon. The two accounts of the same report do not agree on the day, and this item carries the dated and timed one.

Deputies said the girl, Beata Lendman, was found in the pond directly behind the family's home after she had been missing for about 15 minutes. The Naples Daily News reports that when deputies arrived, a man ran toward them carrying the child, unresponsive. Gulf Coast News described her as nearly 2 in its own text, but both newsrooms give her age as 1 where they report what the sheriff's office itself said, and that is how this item reports her.

According to a sheriff's office report described by the station, she was in the care of a family friend who was watching several children at the time. He told deputies he had been playing soccer with the children when he realized he had not seen her for more than 15 minutes. He found her about three feet from the shoreline and began CPR while someone called 911.

Immokalee Fire Chief Michael Choate told the station the first deputy arrived within four minutes and took over.

"The deputies in this county are so amazing. He did such a great job of CPR until he was relieved by our crews and Collier County EMS, and every possible lifesaving measure that could happen took place."

A fundraiser organized for the family says Beata died early on the morning of Monday, August 17. Ave Maria University announced her death on Wednesday. She was the daughter of Daniel Lendman, Ph.D., the university's dean of students, and his wife, Veronica.

University president Mark Middendorf asked the campus to pray for them.

"We ask our community to keep Dr. Daniel and Veronica Lendman and their children in prayer following the loss of their daughter, Beata. Please continue to hold the Lendman family close in prayer."

Daniel Lendman told Gulf Coast News that the family has been overwhelmed by the response.

"We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from the Ave Maria community. We ask for continued prayers for our family. Beata's funeral will be a celebration of her precious life, and we give all glory to God for the tremendous gift she was."

The family says the funeral will be held at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday at Ave Maria Parish.

Choate used the call to make a point about where drownings actually happen here. Families concentrate on pool safety, he said, but Southwest Florida's lakes, ponds and canals carry the same danger.

"This is just such a sobering reminder that we live in a county that has water everywhere."

Nobody has been arrested, charged or accused in connection with the death, and nothing in the public record indicates a criminal investigation. This desk has not named the family friend who was supervising, because he is a private individual whom no authority has accused of anything.

There is no document behind this one that this desk has read. The Collier County Sheriff's Office newsroom returns an access error to this machine, and Ave Maria University's own news pages carry nothing on the death, so both the sheriff's account and the university's announcement reach the public here through the station's reporting and are credited that way.

This death is not the Ave Maria water park drowning that local coverage from 2024 still surfaces. That was a different child, at a different place, two years ago.

Correction and update, August 20, 2026, 12.45 p.m. ET. An earlier version of this item said deputies responded on Saturday afternoon, following the Gulf Coast News report it was sourced to. The Naples Daily News, reporting the same Collier County Sheriff's Office record on August 20, gives the response as about 3.25 p.m. on Sunday, August 16. That is the dated and timed account of the two, and it is what this item now carries; the earlier Saturday wording is stated above rather than removed, because two newsrooms reading the same report do not agree on the day. The earlier version also said this desk could not settle whether the child was 1 or nearly 2. It can now: the second newsroom's reading of the sheriff's report also gives her age as 1, which is how this item has reported her throughout, and the nearly-2 wording is the first station's own. The Naples Daily News account of the deputies' arrival has been added. Nothing else in this item has changed, and its location is unchanged: the street the sheriff's report gives is in Ave Maria, which this desk checked against the county map after the Naples Daily News placed the address in Immokalee.