Off-duty fire chief helps 4-year-old boy after near-drowning in Shirley
Officials said the boy was taken to a local hospital before a helicopter flew him to Boston for further treatment.
Passersby and an off-duty fire chief helped provide aid to a 4-year-old boy alongside a road in Shirley on Monday after his mother found him face down in a swimming pool.After the mother found her son in their above-ground pool around 4:20 p.m., she immediately began yelling for help, carrying her son to the front of their home on Lawton Road, Shirley Police Chief Samuel Santiago said in a release.
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Acton Fire Chief Robert Hart said in a statement he had been driving home when he noticed several individuals gathered around the boy and pulled over to help, assisting a bystander who “despite having no training beyond what she’d seen in movies, performed CPR effectively.”
Hart continued to help the boy, Santiago said, using emergency response equipment that he had in his car to suction water out of the child’s mouth, until Shirley police and fire crews arrived.
Hart said that the boy’s mother “had gone inside the home momentarily while the boy was swimming.”
The 4-year-old was initially taken to Nashoba Valley Medical Center before a helicopter flew him to Boston for further treatment.
There had been no updates on the boy’s condition as of Tuesday afternoon.
“I’m grateful to live among such caring people as the ones who assisted a child in need today. Each one of those bystanders are true heroes,” Hart said in a statement. “My heart goes out to the boy’s family, and I’m hopeful for the best possible outcome.”
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