CPR novice saves toddler

Two-year-old William Grimes lay in a puddle of water by the side of the pool in his great-grandmother’s backyard in Huntington Beach Saturday afternoon, his blond hair plastered to his tiny forehead. He had just taken a tumble into the backyard pool and nearly drowned.

“His lips were purple and his jaw was stiff when I blew into his mouth,” said 13-year-old Cory Craft, a family friend who helped revive William.

Like any 2-year-old, William can’t sit still for more than a few minutes before bursting into a blur of skipping, running and giggling. He’s got a million-watt smile and a mischievous twinkle in his round, blue eyes.

William will turn 3 next week thanks in part to the quick thinking of Cory, William’s brother 10-year-old Gunnar Teachman, and 17-year-old Alexandria Maddox. As Cory and Gunnar dove into the pool to fish William out, Alexandria called 911. The most amazing part of the story is Cory was never trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but figured out how to do it from what he saw on a poolside sticker.

After Gunnar got his brother out of the pool, one thought ran through mom Gina Teachman’s mind as she saw the body of her lifeless toddler laying by the side of the pool.

“Don’t do this to me, baby, you can’t do this to me, not now,” she said.

Teachman and friend Irene Craft were celebrating the Labor Day weekend Saturday with their children at the pool behind Teachman’s grandmother’s house.

Craft, who was keeping an eye on William as he paddled in the shallow end, turned away from him for a moment to find his orange “floaties,” the inflatable plastic rings the boy uses to play safely in the pool. But in the moment it took to get the water wings, William had drifted to the bottom of the pool.

Teachman was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. The older children played around the pool, tossing plastic dinosaurs and other toys in the water and diving after them. Eager to join in the fun, William had tossed some paper plates in the pool.

“I think [William] wanted to get the toy dinosaurs; he was going after what he wanted,” Gunnar said, explaining why William slipped into the water. “He’s always trying to do the same stuff I do.”

Gunnar had his back turned to William, who was in the shallow end of the pool, as he walked toward the diving board. Gunnar turned around when he reached the other end of the pool and saw his little brother at the bottom of the shallow end.

“He looked really white at the bottom of the pool,” Gunnar said.

William didn’t appear to be moving or breathing at all by the time his brother spotted him at the bottom of the pool.

“William’s at the bottom of the pool!” Gunnar shouted.

Gunnar and Cory, Craft’s son, immediately dove into the pool and swam toward the lifeless toddler.

“I was there in three seconds, I didn’t even think about it,” Gunnar said. “I wasn’t ready to let him go.”

“It happened so fast, it takes longer to tell the story than the time it actually happened in,” Alexandria said. “I went to the phone without even thinking; someone yelled ‘Call 911’ as I ran inside.”

Teachman thought the children were joking around when she heard the commotion coming from the back yard while she worked in the kitchen.

“When I looked outside and saw William, it didn’t even register, I was like, ‘Are you joking?’ It didn’t even seem real.”

By then, Alexandria had reached the Huntington Beach Police Department, and a dispatcher was trying to walk Craft through performing CPR on the toddler, whose lips were turning purple.

“My mom was pushing on his chest, but it just looked like she was doing it wrong,” Cory said.

The teen pushed his mom away from William and began administering CPR himself.

“I never did CPR before,” Cory said. “I just knew I could do it.”

It was one of those little CPR stickers stuck on the side of a pool belonging to one of Cory’s friends that might have got William breathing again.

“I always saw the sticker, and thought, ‘That’s dumb, who needs that, when are you ever going to need CPR?’” Cory said. “But I guess I read it.”

William coughed and began to vomit pool water after Cory began CPR.

“He looked very tired from everything he had been through,” Craft said. “He was very lethargic.”

Huntington Beach firefighters arrived as William began breathing again.

“I think I embarrassed the kids, hugging them in front of the firemen, but I was so proud of what they had done,” Craft said. “It was the kids who saved him, they did everything.”

William spent two days in the hospital, under observation to make sure he would not develop pneumonia. The toddler is healthy and back at home this week, a hospital wristband still stuck on his wrist as he tears around the house, laughing and shouting.

“He’s back to his normal self,” Teachman said. “The kids brought him back to life.”

William likes to say “The shark saved me,” according to Gunnar. “He says ‘Gunnar shark saved me.’ I guess he thinks I was a shark.”

For the most part, Gunnar, Cory and Alexandria remain modest about their rescue efforts.

“I kind of think, ‘Oh, it was nothing,’” Cory said. “But at the same time I kind of feel like that was a good thing because he’s too young, and I wasn’t going to let him, you know? ”