Horror, Then Joy as Young Swimmer Is Revived

Terri Vernon recalled her horror while she was on vacation at Lake Tahoe two days ago and saw a young boy being pulled from the water at Sand Harbor Beach. He was not breathing, his face was blue, and his skin was “cold and clammy,” she said.

Vernon, now back home in Huntington Beach, said Saturday she knew there was little time to waste if the boy, Nathan Knight, 6, of Carson City, was to live.

“I felt no heartbeat and no pulse or anything. I immediately propped his neck up, opened his airway, gave him two quick blasts and started doing resuscitation. But he did nothing, no response,” Vernon said.

Three minutes later, with the help of another woman, the boy showed signs of life when he coughed up water, opened his eyes and began crying. He was later taken to a hospital.

The incident occurred Thursday while Vernon, 33, and her family vacationed at Sand Harbor Beach. Lake Tahoe authorities have credited three people--Vernon; the other woman, Cida Kennel of Sparks, Nev., who helped administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and Bernardino Soto of Tahoe City, Calif., who pulled the boy from the water--with saving his life.

The moment that young Nathan started breathing on his own was special, Vernon recalled.

“When he responded, I started to cry. It was amazing. I started to hug my kids,” she said.

During an interview Saturday, Vernon said she owed her lifesaving skills to a two-hour CPR class she attended through her Huntington Beach Junior Women’s Club. She is employed as a contract administrator.

The young boy had been swimming and diving with a party of 12 children and two baby-sitters. Vernon said that Soto had been watching a group of boys diving. When Nathan didn’t surface, Soto thought that Nathan was just holding his breath. But then he realized the boy was in trouble, dashed into the water and pulled him to the shore, Vernon said.

After Vernon began checking the victim, the second woman, a nurse, pitched in and breathed into the boy’s mouth while Vernon compressed his chest.

By the time paramedics arrived, the boy was revived but in shock and very frightened, Vernon said.

He was then flown to Washoe Medical Center in Reno and later discharged.

“He was a very lucky boy,” said Vernon, who added that fate played a major role in the rescue.

When she and her husband, David, took their two children to the beach, they first sat down 200 yards from where the boy was pulled from the water.

But Vernon’s son, Brandon, 3, wanted to dig in the sand closer to the water.

“Hey, I’m a mother of a 3-year-old and an 18-month-old baby. We had a lot of stuff. But we picked up everything and we moved it down there so my son could dig. . . .

“Looking back at what happened, the whole thing, and the fact that we had moved to that spot, was amazing,” she said. “My girlfriend, who is a pediatric nurse for 10 years . . . said this boy was clinically dead.”