A 12-year-old Minnesota boy is alive today due to the quick-thinking of two people who happened to notice something awry when he was swimming in a pool.
The boy, named Evan, was swimming with friends at a community pool in Rochester, Minnesota, on Wednesday when one of them saw him lying underwater on the floor of the pool.
“I went underwater and all of a sudden I see him just lying on the ground just sitting down on 5 feet, just passed out,” Cody Runyon told ABC News.
Incredible rescue at Minnesota swimming pool caught on surveillance video. https://t.co/FH1mEtQ6W9 pic.twitter.com/N3TncmZ0mV
— ABC News (@ABC) June 11, 2018
Cody then rushed to the bottom of the pool and pulled Evan, who was unconscious, to the shallow end.
“I held him around the waist, put his head over my shoulder and I just carried him like that,” he said.
Surveillance video then shows the moment witness Desiree Pasko goes over to the boys to help. Although Pasko suffers from a severe case of fibromyalgia and can barely walk, she was able to rise from her wheelchair in Evan’s moment of need.
Pasko described Evan’s body as “limp as can be” as she saw Cody dragging him toward her.
Thinking he wasn’t alive, Pasko squatted down to lift Evan out of the water and set him on the ground.
“He was so tiny in that moment, and he was blue, and he was cold, and he was wet, and he was clearly deceased,” she said.
Pasko then performed CPR on him. As she did chest compressions, she saw the color return to his cheeks, and then he began to vomit water.
“Watching a boy go from totally blue to a little bit pink is a rewarding feeling,” she said, weeping.
Evan credited Cody and Pasko for saving his life.
“They’re definitely my heroes because without Cody and Des I wouldn’t be alive,” he said.
(H/T: ABC News)