A policeman named Brian Wilson in Columbus, Ohio, is being praised for saving a two-year-old girl from drowning while he was off the clock.
The child’s mother, Mary Giedeman, said she, her boyfriend Stephen Lopez, and their daughter named Carmella recently moved to the area and were living at a friend’s house while looking for their own place, Fox News reported Tuesday.
On June 19, Giedeman and Carmella returned home from a trip to the grocery store when Giedemen let their dog out and put away groceries.
Minutes later Giedeman realized the house was very quiet.
“When your kid gets quiet, it’s like, oh, what are they doing, they’re into something,” she said. “Normally it takes me a minute to realize it, but something kicked in right away.”
Giedeman looked in the next room and saw the door she had opened earlier was not completely closed. She ran outside to find Carmella floating in the pool.
“I dove in and I pulled her out and put her on the deck,” Giedeman noted. However, she did not know CPR so she began to scream.
Five houses down, Officer Wilson, who was off-duty that day, heard her cries and ran to help.
While neighbors called 911, Wilson began doing CPR on Carmella who was not breathing.
“I was definitely worried,” Wilson commented. “I mean, I’ve done CPR a few times in my career. That was the first time I’ve done it on a child. And quite honestly, just the way she looked, the way she felt, you know, she was very limp.”
Wilson continued CPR and Carmella eventually vomited and began to moan before medical personnel arrived.
Carmella was transported to the hospital and monitored for a few days before being sent home.
“I just kept thanking God and I just knew he was an angel,” Giedeman said of the officer.
However, Wilson did not view his actions as heroic.
“If you have the ability to help somebody, regardless of what it is, I would hope that any decent person would do it,” he concluded.
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