Shaw airmen help save local boy Published July 14, 2003 By Staff Sgt. Lee Watts 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. (AFPN) -- Three Air Force maintenance troops recently helped save a local boy from drowning at their apartment complex's pool."It was about 8:30 (on a) Sunday night," said Senior Airman James Winter, an electrical/environmental systems journeyman in the 20th Component Maintenance Squadron here. "We had just come back with some burgers and were eating them at one of the tables around the pool when a teenage girl approached us."Winter said the girl was very calm and said she did not know if her friend was kidding around or not, but he might be in trouble.“From where I was sitting, I could only see a kid playing out in the middle, and he seemed fine,” said Airman 1st Class Eric Hay, an aerospace propulsion journeyman in the 20th CMS.Winter said he walked to the pool to get a better look and saw a person at the bottom of the 12-foot section. He dove in to retrieve him.“When I got to the bottom, I knew this wasn’t a joke,” he said. “His eyes were open, and he looked just like in the movies. I started to pull him up, which was hard to do because the limp body was so heavy.”Senior Airman Matthew Summers, another aerospace propulsion journeyman in the 20th CMS, also dove into the pool and helped lift the 16-year-old victim. The airmen swam the high school senior to the surface and to the side of the pool. Hay and one of the boy’s friends then helped pull him out of the water.Hay said he immediately dialed 9-1-1 on his cell phone.“(The boy) wasn’t breathing, and there was no pulse; so some of his friends started to do CPR,” Summers said.After one compression, the people who began the CPR became very emotional. Summers said he and Winter took over doing compressions while one of the boy’s friends continued the breaths.Hay said he continued to check the boy’s pulse while the others tried to revive him. “When I showed up, (Airmen) Summers and Winter were already doing compressions,” said Mike Deal, a Sumter resident who lives near the pool and witnessed the event. “A policeman showed up right after me but before the ambulance did. The policeman told them to continue doing CPR until the ambulance arrived.”“It seemed like forever, but in reality it was only three minutes or so,” Summers said. “He wasn’t responding, but we were all determined not to give up.”About a minute before the ambulance arrived, the boy started to cough up water, Summers said.Hay said it was then that the boy’s pulse returned. (Courtesy of Air Combat Command News Service)