Child’s quick thinking, mother’s CPR training saves 4-year-old who fell into pool
By Karin Johnson
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BURLINGTON, Kentucky (WLWT) — Once a year, the Hillenbrand family of Burlington gets together for an annual paint party.
Even when they’re covered in paint, they’re all smiles.
But on Saturday, laughter turned to panic when 9-year-old Macey found her 4-year-old cousin at the bottom of the pool.
“We’re really not sure how he ended up from down at the picnic table, up under the deck, into the pool. There was no splash,” Macey’s mother, Amber Hillenbrand, said.
Macey managed to stay calm and pull him out as other kids screamed for Amber Hillenbrand, who is a certified CPR trainer for the American Red Cross.
“I just jumped up on the deck and literally slid clean across the deck to get to him and started CPR,” Hillenbrand said. “His heart was not beating when we got him up.”
Hillenbrand says she felt relief when she saw the color coming back in her nephew’s lips after four or five rounds of CPR.
“I just screamed to everybody, ‘He’s breathing. We got him back.’ I started screaming it and you could hear everybody just start crying that cry of relief to know he’s here. He’s back,” Hillenbrand said.
Hillenbrand got her CPR trainers credentials five years ago because she’s a day care director. Now, she’s sharing her nephew’s story in hopes it will encourage others to get certified.
“If I could literally sit here and do a class for all of Boone County, I would, because I just feel the importance of it and knowing how to how to do it and knowing appropriately how to react in my situation, literally saves lives, because it literally saved my nephew’s life on Saturday,” Hillenbrand said.
She said she feels if this could happen to her family, where adults had eyes on the little ones, it could happen to anyone’s.
“It was terrifying,” Hillenbrand said.
The 4-year-old was taken to Children’s Hospital to be checked out and was released.
Hillenbrand says he’s already back to being a happy and healthy little boy. She said it appears he may have been trying to get a water gun from the pool when he fell in.
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