When this sort of thing stops being NEWS, we will be where we need to be!

Lifeguards save boy in Quincy pool
E-mail| Print | Comments (0) July 1, 2011 8:38 PM
By Neal J. Riley, Globe Correspondent

A Quincy boy who stopped breathing while at his swim class today was revived by lifeguards who pulled him from the water and performed CPR, town officials said.

The boy, who police said was 13, was in the highest-level swim class at the Lincoln-Hancock Community School in Quincy when he lost consciousness in the water at about 1 p.m., according to Christopher Walker, spokesman for Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch.

About 45-50 youths were in the pool at the time, watched by 14 lifeguards, Walker said.

It appears that the near-drowning of the boy, who was taken to Children’s Hospital Boston, was the result of a medical condition, Quincy Recreation Director Barry Welch said. The unidentified boy apparently tried to stand up in the shallow end and fell backward onto another swimmer, Welch said.

Lifeguard Joseph Benoit, 20, said in a telephone interview that the class was wrapping up when some of the students, who range from 10 to 15 years old, alerted him that the boy was bleeding from the mouth and sinking under the water near the side of the pool. He and another lifeguard pulled the boy out and immediately began CPR with lifeguard Julie Kisielius, 21.

“I’ve done it hundreds and hundreds of times on the dummies but this is the first time I’ve done it on a human,” said Benoit, a junior studying civil engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Benoit said he did not initially detect a pulse from the boy and estimated that two minutes went by before he was revived, a situation that had everyone “a little scared.”

“As far as the nerves, the nerves are still real,” Benoit said tonight.

The pool’s on-site supervisor, Benoit said he had just been recertified in CPR two weeks ago. He has been a lifeguard at the pool for five summers.

“The proper training helped out with everything and made it go smoothly,” he said.

About 750 children take lessons at the pool during the summer, Welch said.

“They were as cool as can be, it was textbook,” Welch said of the lifeguards, who are all trained by the American Red Cross. “All the training that you put into these situations, it’s nice to see that the young people respond as they’re trained to do.”

“I think it’s fair to say that they saved this kid’s life,” Walker said. “At the very least they prevented a tragedy.”

Benoit said he was just happy that the boy was OK.

“Hopefully we’ll see him again for future lessons,” he said.