A regular vacation outing turned into a near-death experience for one young boy after he found himself stuck inside a pipe in an indoor pool and trapped underwater for nearly eight full minutes. While the surveillance footage of the incident is definitely harrowing to watch, it's something all parents should see.
The beginning of the video shows that two boys were alone in a resort's lazy river when one of them lifted an underwater grate and got his leg stuck in a pipe.
The boy — identified by the Sun News as an anonymous 12-year-old vacationing at the Avista Resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with his parents — quickly disappeared under the water. His unnamed friend attempted to pull him free of the pipe for nearly a minute but was unsuccessful.
The boy was stuck for about one minute and 16 seconds before his friend called out for help.
A woman in a nearby pool jumped in and made another attempt to pull the boy out. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to.
The boy was underwater for nearly two minutes when another man vacationing with his family walked by and jumped in to help.
Today reports that the man is a corrections officer from Pennsylvania named Shaun Skursky. While multiple other people tried to come to the drowning boy's rescue and get him free of the pipe, Skursky spent the next several minutes performing underwater mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on him. "I was giving him underwater breaths to try and keep him alive,'' he said in an interview with Today.
There's very little information on in-water resuscitation (IWR). In fact, most people aren't even aware it's possible. According to a conference paper published by the International Life Saving Federation, there's very little science backing up the accuracy of the procedure: "Even trained lifeguards cannot always accomplish IWR technique effectively, especially in deep water."
Police finally arrived after the boy had been trapped underwater for almost eight minutes.
It took all three officers responding to the scene to frantically try to free the trapped kid. It wasn't until a hotel maintenance worker finally turned off the pool's pumps that they were able to pull him out of the water.
The Sun News reports that the first responders performed CPR on the boy until they heard a "faint pulse," and then he was transported to a hospital.
According to Today, the boy's current condition is unknown because his family is requesting that their identities be kept private. They did share that he was able to return home to Michigan following the ordeal, though.
It's incredibly difficult to watch just how close the 12-year-old came to losing his life.
Further investigation by Today revealed that the area around the pool had signs that made it clear there was no lifeguard on duty. Avista Resort also confirmed that its pool's filtration system was checked twice last year and was definitely up to code. "With the grates in place, our lazy river is safe for all of our guests,'' resort officials said in a statement to NBC News. "Evidence confirms that the boy and his companion dislodged the grate before he caught his foot in the intake."
The Sun News spoke with Horry County Fire Rescue Chief Joseph Tanner, who said that the boy's life was saved only due to the amazing actions of Shaun Skursky, the responding police, and everyone else who stepped in to help. "The fact that he was alive when he was transported to the hospital can be larger attributed to the fact that several people involved in the incident, in his rescue, gave him mouth-to-mouth while he was underwater," he said.
Skursky told Today that he's incredibly glad he was there to help save the boy's life. "It's just something I felt like I had to do," he said, "and I'm glad I did it because now this little boy gets to live the rest of his life out."
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