Quick reactions by lifeguards and two off duty paramedics ended up saving the life of a drowning boy on Sunday.
Kyle Klint and Karlie Wilson are husband and wife, and paramedics. They were at the West Hills YMCA-YWCA swimming pool with their two sons, waiting to go on the water slide, when the lifeguards blew their whistles.
Klint, an advanced care paramedic and street supervisor, says he used to be a lifeguard, and instinctively started scanning the pool when he heard the whistle.
"As soon as I hear a whistle blow, I keow that it's a major incident that's happening in the pool. So at that point I started scanning, out of habit, scanning the pool, to see what was going on, and I could see the lifeguards running to grab some gear. Then I saw them hit the waterslide and power it off, and then start clearing the pool, so I knew there was something was going on. So then we started moving down the stairs, and we could actually see the lifeguard swimming, with the little boy, towards the side of the pool."
Klint says as they made their way down from the waterslide, he could tell the boy had drowned at that point.
"He looked lifeless in the water, he was very, very pale, and we could see a lot of frothing and foaming around his mouth, which told me he was probably under the water for a duration of time at that point."
Klint and Wilson, who is a paramedic and emergency medical dispatcher, rushed down to the pool deck, and began administering CPR.
Wilson said they took over from the lifeguards.
"When we got there, he wasn't breathing, he wasn't conscious. So we started CPR, and my husband, Kyle, he started clearing out the airway, because there was a lot of vomit and stuff like that. So he was clearing out the airway so we could be able to breathe for him and do CPR."
Wilson says she doesn't know how long she was doing CPR for, but eventually the boy started breathing on his own, and became conscious. She says he was awake and crying when the paramedics arrived on the scene.
The lifeguards had called 911 as soon as the whistle was blown, and 4 paramedics were dispatched from Leigh Road. Brad Cameron, manager of patient care delivery for Greater Victoria, says paramedics arrived at the pool within 7 minutes to find the five year old boy breathing, conscious, and alert.
He says he's very proud of the Klint and Wilson, especially given the gravity of the situation.
"All calls that we do can be very emotionally and psychologically traumatizing. But without a question, any call that we do that involves a child is by far and above the worst ones. So when we go do from infants to toddlers to five year olds, it can be very traumatic. So the fact that they intervened as quickly as they did, and as efficiently as they did, and is a good story, is fantastic."
Wilson says this should be a lesson to everybody to learn about water safety, and to recognize the signs of drowning. She also advocates people take first aid and CPR courses, so they can be prepared in case they ever run into a similar situation.