Usher’s ex-wife seeking custody after son’s near-drowning in pool

Usher Raymond’s ex-wife, Tameka Foster Raymond, is reportedly pursuing custody of her two sons with the performer after a swimming pool accident Monday in Atlanta in which the older of the boys nearly drowned.

Tameka Raymond filed Tuesday for an emergency custody hearing that was approved the same day and will be held Friday. The court filing said the boy “suffered a near-death accident” while left unsupervised in the pool Monday. Mom, who is apparently unhappy with the people to whom Dad has delegated caretaking duties, is seeking temporary custody of the kids.

On Monday, 5-year-old Usher Raymond V went to get a toy that had fallen to the bottom of the pool and wound up getting his arm stuck in a drain, TMZ reported, adding that his aunt Rena Oden and a housekeeper tried to get the boy loose but could not. The women called for help from two contractors working on the sound system in the house, and Oden called 911.

Eugene Stachurski, one of the contractors, was able to free the boy and was performing CPR while Oden talked to a 911 dispatcher, according to a police report obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Paramedics took over upon arrival a few minutes later.

“I couldn’t get him, I tried to get him ... ,” Oden said on the frantic call, a recording of which was made public by police Tuesday. “They’re doing CPR on him now,” she said, before confirming to the operator that the boy was breathing.

The police report said the boy was “conscious, alert and breathing” when he was brought to the hospital, and was kept there overnight for observation.

Usher, who just spent a season as a judge on “The Voice,” and Tameka were both at the hospital while the boy was in ICU, TMZ said.

The couple, whose divorce was final in 2009, were involved in a heated custody battle from 2008 until Usher was awarded primary custody of Usher V and Naviyd Ely Raymond in August 2012.

Usher and Tameka are no strangers to family tragedy: Her son and his stepson, Kile Glover, died in July 2012 when he was removed from life support two weeks after a boating accident in which the 11-year-old sustained a head injury. The performer, who’d helped raise Kile since age 4, was not among the friends and family present at the time of the accident.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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