Close call at neighborhood pool
Published 10:00 pm Tuesday, June 4, 2013
A 5-year-old boy was involved in a near drowning at a North Suffolk neighborhood pool last Wednesday, according to the vice president of AAA Pool Services.
Before running into trouble, the boy had been swimming in the Kempton Park pool, off Bennett’s Creek Park Road, said Jim Durkee, whose company provides lifeguard services at 60 pools in the Tidewater area.
“At some point – I don’t know exactly what point – he came from being an active swimmer to a potential drowning,” Durkee said.
The boy was unresponsive when pulled from the water about 4:30 p.m., Durkee said, adding a female lifeguard and a bystander who happened to be a physician’s assistant performed CPR.
“Within 30 seconds of resuscitation he started coming back (and) vomiting and breathing on his own,” Durkee said.
Durkee said the company, which employs 250 lifeguards each summer, experiences at least one “life-saving incident” every year, though “not always quite this extreme.”
“I told my lifeguard, after she returned, she should feel nothing but proud of herself,” he said.
The boy, who was at the pool with his mother, was taken to the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters by road ambulance, Durkee said. “I believe he was released the same day,” he added.