Footage of a father saving his infant son from drowning in the family pool has gone viral and is now serving as a public service announcement for all parents ahead of summer.
On May 16, a home security camera in Southern California captured the heart-stopping moment an infant boy slipped into his family’s backyard pool, and his quick-witted father pulled him from the water in the nick of time. The father, a first responder, shared the video of the incident with his department and is now using it to promote pool safety awareness.
“This occurred at the home of one of our very own Hemet Firefighters, Engineer/Paramedic Zachary Petite,” Hemet City Firefighters Association, IAFF Local 2342, said in an official statement shared with The Epoch Times. “The one-year-old boy is he and his wife Jessica’s youngest child.”
Even though Zachary and Jessica had a gate around their pool, a motion-activated surveillance camera, and “appropriate” floatation devices, their son, Cole, still managed to take off his swimming vest and get into the water without it. Luckily, Zachary was close by, and “only had his back turned for a matter of seconds while tending to his middle child on the pool deck.”
Zachary noticed what had happened immediately and was able to retrieve Cole quickly by lifting him from the pool and laying him on his back to recover. Zachary told Fox News that his son was “sinking to the bottom” when he reached the poolside. He implored other parents with pools to “make sure it has a gate, a child safety lock, [and] door alarms.”
“The video is a sobering reminder that a water emergency can happen to anyone at anytime in a matter of seconds,” Hemet City Firefighters, said insisting, “Zach and Jessica’s proactive approach to pool safety is the reason their son survived. Children drown without a sound, please watch the water.”
