Man Saves Drowning Girl ‘Nobody Else Even Noticed’

A father admits that rushing into South Dakota’s Lake Mitchell and saving a child who was submerged and began drowning was “scary” — especially afterwards when he realized that the child’s parents didn’t even know she was in danger. (Photo: Getty Images).

When Derek Davis spotted a young girl dipping underwater at South Dakota’s Lake Mitchell on Sunday afternoon, he wasn’t sure whether she was in trouble. “I couldn’t tell if she was playing or struggling,” he told The Daily Republic about the child, who had been playing with his 5-year-old and 3-year-old earlier that day on Sandy Beach. But 15 seconds later, when the girl (who Davis estimates is 4 years old) didn’t surface, he knew — and raced into the lake where she disappeared 15 feet from the shore. “As soon as I picked her up out of the water, I knew something wasn’t right,” said the father, 28, adding, “There was no life in her face at all.”

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Back on land, Davis immediately began CPR, which he had never done before outside of a high school training class. “It was scary,” he said. “The adrenaline just started pumping, and I just did whatever I [needed] to do to get her breathing again.”

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The girl responded and began coughing and crying. Davis found the child’s parents, and they called 911. Paramedics subsequently confirmed that the girl was OK. Reflecting on the incident, the dad marveled, “Nobody else even noticed her in the water. It makes you realize though how hard you have to watch your children and keep an eye on them.” Drowning, after all, claims the lives of about 10 Americans every day, according to the CDC, which reports that two of those 10 victims are children age 14 or younger.

“You can’t make the assumption that it’s the lifeguard’s responsibility to look out for every single person in the water at every moment,” Jill White, co-founder of the water safety and swim instruction Starfish Aquatics Institute in Savannah, Ga., tells Yahoo Parenting. “That’s just impossible.” So if you see something, White urges, do something. “There’s nothing magical about a rescue technique that you need to be trained for — just pick the child up,” she says. “It’s just like grabbing a child who is running into the street. It’s that simple — anyone can do it and save a life.”

Knowing when to act isn’t tricky either, she notes. “It all comes down to the time element,” says White. “If a child doesn’t lift his or her head in 10 seconds of having their nose and mouth both underwater, somebody needs to intervene.” Any longer than 10 seconds, she says, kids start to drown. By 20 seconds, they may even start to fall unconscious. “It’s just as if you’re being suffocated with a pillow or anything else that prevents you from getting air,” says White. “You start to die from lack of oxygen, and the longer you go, the chances are worse that if you survive, you’ll have permanent brain damage.”

And all of this can happen with people nearby, simply unaware of what’s really happening. “There are so many tragic stories of adults in pools during parties, and they think kids are just playing because they’re going underwater and coming back up — yet they’re not watching to see if the child comes up within 10 seconds,” she says.

It’s a myth that kids will flail around if they’re drowning, White adds. “There won’t usually be any splashing at all,” she says. “If they’re vertical and don’t know how to tread water, they’ll be bouncing up and down to try and get their mouth out of the water so that they can breathe. And if they’re floating, they’ll be face-down because little kids have big heads and small bodies. When they lose footing in the pool, their head pulls them forward and they can’t get face-up.”

That’s why any child in the water needs an attentive adult within arms’ reach at all times. And if a kid’s parent or caregiver isn’t paying attention, White urges anyone and everyone to call them out – no matter how reticent you may feel about getting involved. “A lot of times parents will be upset about intervention and tell lifeguards, ‘My child was fine. You embarrassed her!’” says White. “But you can’t second-guess yourself. If you say something and you get a parent mad, all you have is a mad parent. If you don’t say something and the worst happens, a child could die. It’s a safety issue and a situation where you could save a life.”

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