Mom and son team to save girl from drowning

Life vests now hang beside the gate to a pool where a child was revived after being pulled from the water Sunday.

LAKEWOOD – A mom and her son who pulled a young girl from a local swimming pool this weekend will be recognized for their heroic efforts, a West Metro Fire Rescue District spokeswoman said Monday.

Sarah Carmody was watching her son, 4-year-old Quinn and her daughter, Alexis Hodorowski play in the crowded pool at the Belmar Groves Apartments, 259 S. Teller St., Sunday afternoon when Quinn spotted the motionless form of a 5-year-old girl lying face-down on the bottom of the pool.

“He yelled over to me: Mommy, Mommy, there’s a little girl drowning! Mommy, Mommy, she needs help,” Carmody said Monday. “He took some swimming lessons through Peanut Butter and Jellyfish right there in Lakewood,” said Carmody, 30, of Morrison. “They taught him what to look for.”

Carmody and her kids were visiting their grandmother at Belmar Groves when they decided to cool off in the pool.

That proved fortunate.

After Quinn alerted his mom, Carmody jumped in and pulled the girl from the pool and began efforts to resuscitate her, drawing on CPR skills learned years ago as a Girl Scout.

By the time paramedics arrived, the girl was conscious and crying. She was taken to a hospital for treatment and paramedics said she was alert and asking questions.

There was no official report on the girl’s condition, but “from what I’ve been told, she was doing very well considering what she had just been through,” West Metro spokeswoman Michelle French said.

The girl’s mother was with her in the pool, but had been distracted by another child she was watching, French said. 

Paramedics on the scene credited Carmody with preventing what could have been a child’s death.

“They absolutely said that because of her knowing CPR and getting her revived – she was blue and had no pulse – she made the difference,” French said adding that mom and son “absolutely” are due for recognition by the department for their life-saving effort.

Carmody’s pride in her son was evident in her voice Monday.

“He’s the hero. If he wouldn’t have said anything, I don’t know that anybody would have noticed. It would have been very tragic,” she said. “I am mega-proud of him.”

But Carmody was modest when it came to the role she played in the life-saving mother and son effort.

 ”I think I was just in the right place at the right time and had the right knowledge,” she said. “I hope that if anything would ever happen to my children that somebody would be there to do the same thing.”

West Metro delivered a batch of life jackets to the pool Monday, hoping to prevent a similar – or a more tragic – event. The lightweight life jackets are posted next to the pool’s still-locked gate and invite kids to use one while they are in the pool area.

“They are more than welcome to use those while they are there and then return it to the board when they are done,” French said. “We have those at Bear Creek Lake Park and we’ve been using them with great success. Now we are starting to move into more of the apartment complexes in our District.” 

The life jacket program is funded by Kiwanis Clubs in West Metro’s service area.

Drowning is the nation’s fifth leading cause of unintentional trauma-related death, French said.

“Drowning is very silent and it happens so quickly, even if mom’s in the pool. That is something we need to be aware of,” French said.