A South Florida boy saved a drowning 13-year-old girl from his mobile home park’s pool Sunday night.
Angel Rivera, 11, Usely Michel and other friends and family were swimming with no lifeguards at the closed pool in Deerfield Park when he noticed Usely at the bottom of the eight-foot-deep water, Rivera told the Sun Sentinel.
“I went and jumped in and pulled her out and gave her to her sisters,” Angel said. “I had to save her life because her sisters were screaming.”
A Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue crew restored Usely’s breathing, but she was unconscious and in critical condition as they rushed her from the Highlands Mobile Home Park to a hospital, said spokesman Mike Jachles. Doctors expect her to survive thanks to Angel, WFOR-TV reported.
“Some kids think they’re cool ’cause they’re not around their parents,” he told the TV station. “They’re like, ‘Oh I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do that.’ But that’s the lesson learned today. You need an adult or a lifeguard to be with you.”
The pool is closed on weekends and holidays, but the group gathered there Sunday had found their way in through a clubhouse. Usely’s mother Mirielle Michel told the Sun Sentinel on Monday that the girl moved from Haiti a year ago and doesn’t know how to swim.
Usely had been playing in the three-foot water but went into the deeper section of the pool because she wanted to keep swimming after her mom told Usely and her sisters it was time to go, Michel said. She wants to thank Angel and other residents who administered CPR before the firefighters made it to the pool, she said.
“God sent them my way,” Michel said. “I don't have money to pay them. But I want to thank them in person. They are heroes for me.”
Investigators don’t suspect foul play or child neglect, according to the newspaper. Jachles said the incident should serve as “a message about water safety.”
Angel’s mother, Violeta Rivera, 31, told the Sun Sentinel that Angel returned home after the rescue thinking only of whether Usely was OK.
“He kept asking how she was, over and over, and he was crying,” Rivera said. “I just kept telling him that I was so proud of him for what he did.”
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