The lawyer for a Tarentum man whose 2 1/2-year-old daughter was found unresponsive in a home swimming pool last month described the situation as a “very bad accident” and said his client did everything he could to try to help her.

“I don’t see this rising to the level of a crime,” attorney Christopher Urbano said during a preliminary hearing before a Brackenridge district judge on Wednesday. “It’s an unfortunate accident.”

The toddler, a daughter of defendant William Richard Nulph, has made a full recovery and has no lasting effects from the incident.

But after hearing testimony from an Allegheny County Police detective, District Judge Carolyn Bengel held Nulph for court on a sole count of felony child endangerment.

Nulph, 35, had been watching his two daughters on March 14 when he left the toddler unattended on a side porch so he could take his 8-month-old inside to feed her.

When he came back to check on her, he found her floating in the swimming pool.

Allegheny County Police charged him with a felony.

But Urbano questioned the seriousness of the charge and said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove this was more than an isolated incident.

He unsuccessfully asked Bengel to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor.

“I certainly don’t think this rises to a felony level because that requires a course of conduct,” he said. “This is the only instance of something like this occurring.”

Allegheny County Police Detective Mark Restori testified that Nulph was “pretty distraught” and in the process of doing CPR on his daughter when authorities arrived at his home on East Fifth Avenue.

The toddler was taken to Allegheny Valley Hospital in Harrison before she was flown toChildren’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and hooked up to an ECMO machine, which pumps and oxygenates a patient’s blood outside the body.

The toddler has recovered. Her name wasn’t spoken during testimony.

Restori testified that Nulph told him that he left the toddler on the side porch for 30 seconds. When he found her in the pool, he got her out, called 911 and started doing CPR, Restori said.

Restori also described in detail the condition of the Nulph home and pool.

In the yard, he testified, he found “numerous things that were a threat to the children” such as gas cans, lawnmowers, hunting arrows with broadheads, hatchets, and lawn and garden tools. There also was an 80-pound piece of railroad track on top of a piece of wood.

“I was able to grab it and just wiggle it,” Restori testified. “It would have fallen over had I put any force on it.”

Nulph didn’t testify during the hearing. He sat stoic next to Urbano, who spoke on his behalf and entered a plea of not guilty.

The case will proceed to Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

“Thank God things did not turn out worse,” Bengel told Nulph. “ Thank God your child is going to be fine.”

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