A North Carolina father's quick actions and CPR knowledge saved his 2-year-old daughter's life after she nearly drowned in the family pool over Memorial Day weekend.
The Gastonia Police Department said a family's Memorial Day cookout took a turn for the worse after the family's two-year-old daughter, named Mila, fell into the pool without a flotation device.
Home surveillance footage showed the critical moment as family and friends rushed to provide assistance to the boy, who quickly began choking.
“My 10-year-old daughter is screaming my youngest daughter's name. Mila! And she just screamed really loud. I looked, turned around and saw my 2-year-old daughter floating,” said Mila's father, Matthew, to the police. .
“And I jumped in and saved her,” he said.
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Mila, 2, made a full recovery, the Gaston County Sheriff's Office said. (Gaston County Sheriff's Office)
Mila's mother, Amy, told police she felt “completely helpless” after seeing her son still lying still on the side of the inground pool.
“I felt hopeless. I felt completely hopeless, like my baby was dead,” she said. “How did this happen? How am I going to live my life without my baby?”
Amy said the boy had turned blue and gray.
Family and friends rushed to two-year-old Mila's side after she fell into the pool and began to drown. (Gaston County Sheriff's Office)
Matthew told police he realized his daughter had fallen into the pool and wasn't breathing and sprang into action.
“Her stomach was full of air, so I picked her up and was going to try to squeeze the air out by hitting her on the back,” he said. “When I did, she let out her breath and started crying.”
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After the girl began breathing again, she was transported to CaroMont Health and made a full recovery, police said.
Surveillance footage released by the Gastonia Police Department shows the girl's father jumping into the pool and immediately performing CPR on his daughter. (Gastonia County Sheriff's Office)
According to the Gastonia County Sheriff's Office, 9 out of 10 children ages 1 to 14 who drowned were under supervision when they did so.
Mila's mother said that now the family would always have an adult in the water playing with the children.
“But our role now is that an adult has to be in the water with the children, playing with them and interacting with them,” Amy said.
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Mila's dad encouraged everyone to be “up to date” on CPR.
“If you're poolside, you need to know how to do word of mouth,” he said.
