Child saved from near drowning in CT
With hot summer weather and school holidays set to start, the public have been urged to take special precautions around water, this after a lifeguard’s quick action saved a five-year-old child from drowning.
The incident took place at a public pool in Cape Town on Tuesday.
ER24 spokesperson Werner Vermaak said the child would certainly have drowned had it not been for quick thinking lifeguards at the Newlands public pool who pulled the child from the water and immediately applied life support.
Vermaak said paramedics were told that lifesavers had found the child “submerged in the water”.
“At approximately 4pm paramedics arrived at the Newlands public swimming pool where they found lifeguards providing life support to the child,” Vermaak said.
The lifeguards told the paramedics they had initially found “no signs of life and so initiated CPR and managed to regain a pulse”.
The paramedics stepped in and provided “advanced life support in order to stabilise the child and later rushed him off to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital for further care”.
Vermaak urged parents and adults to “take special caution around swimming pools, as well as open swimming areas such as beaches and rivers” because it was easy for a child to drown in even a small amount of water.
Vermaak said children should swim in safe, designated areas.