A 10-year-old Texas boy is being praised for swimming to the bottom of his apartment complex’s pool to save a five-year-old girl recently.
Rickie August Jr., who is known as “Junior,” was enjoying a swim when he spotted a little girl in trouble at the bottom of a pool at an apartment complex in Harris County, Click 2 Houston reported.
“When I saw her not moving at all, I knew there was something wrong,” he recalled.
Junior immediately swam up for air, then dove back down.
“I knew that she was not just trying to float, so I just had to go down there and get her,” he stated.
Nearly having drowned himself when he was younger, Junior knew he could not let anything bad happen to the child.
“I just acted. I didn’t think about nothing,” he said, adding, “I had just picked her up–put her over my shoulder and brought her to the stairs.”
Others nearby performed CPR until Cypress Creek EMS arrived on the scene.
“It was vital to her survivability. The fact that she is alive today is because of Junior’s efforts beforehand,” Vivien Miller, a clinical supervisor with Cypress Creek EMS, noted.
“[When we arrived, she didn’t have to have compressions anymore because she had a pulse and she was breathing and she had vomited prior to arrival, which was the effect of getting all that water out of her system,” she continued.
Junior’s family later celebrated him with a surprise party where he got to meet Miller and the little girl he saved, along with her family.
The five-year-old named Egypt told Junior “Thank you!” and hugged him.
“I’m very thankful. Very–like I was telling everybody I love this boy. I love [Junior] like he’s mine,” Egypt’s mom, Diamond Paulhill, said.
Junior is glad he could help and wants to continue setting a good example.
“I like to be a leader for other kids because I think it’s important for other people to learn from what we do,” he noted.