Police have released video of the rescue of a 12-year-old boy whose leg got stuck in a pool grate at a resort in Myrtle Beach, S.C., which kept him underwater for around eight minutes.
In surveillance camera footage from March 19 at the Avista Resort, two boys can be seen playing in a lazy river-style pool, when one of them lifts up a grate from the pool floor. The video was released more than a month later.
He then gets pulled underwater — his leg had gotten stuck in an intake pipe, WBTW News reported at the time.
His friend called for help, and bystanders rushed over to try to get him out.
One of the helpers, Shaun Skursky, started to give mouth-to-mouth while the boy is still underwater.
“I was giving him underwater breaths to try and keep him alive,” Skursky, a Pennsylvania corrections officer who was on vacation at the time, told NBC’s Today Show.
His girlfriend, Melanie Duncan, then went to the hotel office to ask for the pool’s intake system to be turned off. She also called 911.
Emergency workers came onto the scene after around seven minutes, and once the pool’s pumps are turned off, the boy is finally pulled from the water – after seven minutes and 40 seconds.
Shursky, along with the emergency workers, were recognized by the North Myrtle Beach Department of Public Safety for how they helped the boy, the Myrtle Beach Online reports.
“It’s just something I felt like I had to do, and I’m glad I did it because now this little boy gets to live the rest of his life out,” Skursky said.
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Avista Resort officials told NBC News that if the grates are in place, the lazy river is safe to use.
“Evidence confirms that the boy and his companion dislodged the grate before he caught his foot in the intake,” they said.
The boy was in stable condition as of April 9, but due to privacy reasons, his status wasn’t disclosed.
North Myrtle Beach spokesperson Pat Dowling told reporters the fact the boy is alive is due to the quick actions of the bystanders involved.
“The fact that he was alive when he was transported to the hospital can be largely attributed to the fact that several people involved in the incident, in his rescue, gave him mouth-to-mouth while he was underwater,” Dowling said.
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