  |
|
| Alert FL dad saves boy from drowning in Wisconsin |
|
|
| Wednesday, 01 July 2009 | |
|
Cliff Buchan News Editor Like any good dad, Tim Pearson was keeping a careful eye on his five-year-old son as he splashed about in the resort swimming pool. As Ashton Pearson played in the water at the Kahlahari Resort and Convention Center Pool in the Wisconsin Dells, his dad would occasionally look about. It was on one of those casual glances when he noticed another young boy floating face down in the water. “I was sitting on the (pool) steps, keeping an eye on my kid,” Pearson said. But something did not look right. He turned to look for Ashton before turning back in the direction of the second boy. “I thought something was wrong,” the 39-year-old Forest Lake resident said. As he moved to the boy floating in the water, a lifeguard was also responding. Pearson helped the lifeguard lift the boy from the water and immediately began performing CPR. The boy was not breathing. That casual glance and the father’s sense that something wasn’t right probably saved the boy’s life, the Pearsons were told. Pearson, in an interview last week, said he responded to the June 20 incident while acting on instinct. He immediately cleared the boy’s airway and started chest compressions. After working on the boy for a minute, Pearson turned the life-saving effort over to other hotel personnel, first responders and paramedics who quickly arrived on the scene. After about 20 minutes of working on the boy, he was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Baraboo, WI, and later airlifted to a University of Wisconsin hospital in Madison. The boy, Durant Jacob, 6, of Oshkosh, WI, is recovering this week and expected to regain full health, Pearson said, commenting on updates he has received from the boy’s parents. The boy was in stable condition after being listed as critical and in an induced coma for time, Pearson said. Pearson said he has never taken formal CPR training as an adult and acted out of instinct, reaching back to training when he was a local student here. “I just remember taking it (CPR) in elementary school and junior high,” said the 1988 Forest Lake High School graduate. Good fortune Pearson, his wife Angel and four of their six children were in the Wisconsin Dells and staying at the resort where daughters Katie, 15, and Shayla, 8, were taking part in a national competition hosted by the resort. They are part of the Dance Factory troupe in Forest Lake, Tim, daughter Emily, 16, Emily’s friend Mariah Hinz, 16 and Ashton were killing time in the resort pool and water park when the incident happened. Tim and Ashton had just moved to a shallow pool area of the outdoor park when he was forced to change roles from dad to rescuer. The boy was in a little more than four-feet of water and may have fallen while trying to hold on to a rope that allows swimmers to walk over animal-like flotation figures in the water. He was not wearing a life jacket when he was pulled from the water. “I don’t think he could touch bottom,” Pearson said of the boy. “I think that’s why he got in trouble, and he couldn’t swim.” After helping save the boy, Pearson said his next reaction was to focus back on his kids and wife. He quickly found Angel and reassured her it wasn’t their son who was in trouble. In the minutes following the near-drowning, Angel Pearson said she was moved by the actions of the hundreds of people who were poolside. Nobody was moving and many were holding hands. Many were praying, she said. “You could hear a pin drop,” Angel said. A good turn The Pearson clan made its way back to Forest Lake late that night, arriving home in the early-morning hours June 21, still abuzz over Tim’s good deed and the six high-level dance awards won by Shayla and Katie. It was a turn of good luck for the family. Tim Pearson is an unemployed union cement finishers who lost his job last fall when the company that employed him went out of business. He has worked in the commercial trade for 20 years, the last 15 as a union worker. Angel Pearson runs a day care business. He’s been getting by on unemployment benefits while hoping for an uptick in the building trade that could lead to a return to work. With luck, he says, that will come soon. For one Wisconsin family, their stroke of luck was having Tim Pearson poolside on a fateful June afternoon. Social Bookmarking ...       |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|