Cypress Man Rescues Drowning Boy, 7, Uses CPR to Prevent Brain Damage

After pulling an unconscious 7-year-old boy from a swimming pool Monday, a Cypress man helped the youngster begin breathing, saving him from possible brain damage, fire officials said.

Matt Hunt, 33, said he had just hopped out of the pool at the Lincoln Moody Apartments, 9090 Moody St., shortly after 4 p.m. when he heard someone yell about a boy drowning, he said.

Hunt said he turned around and saw Godwin Chua floating face up in eight feet of water. “His lips were blue, and you could see every vein in his face,” Hunt recalled from his apartment after paramedics took the boy to a nearby hospital. “If you’ve ever seen a dead look, that was it.”

Hunt said he pulled the boy from the pool and laid him flat on the concrete near the edge. Drawing on skills he learned in a high school health class, Hunt said he used cardiopulmonary resuscitation for about two minutes before county paramedics arrived.

Paramedics said the youngster was coughing and breathing when they arrived to take him to the hospital, said Capt. Dan Young of the Orange County Fire Department. The boy was able to talk and answer questions in the ambulance on the way to Los Alamitos Medical Center, Young said.

Chua was later transferred to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, where he was listed in good condition, said spokesman Ron Yukelson. Yukelson said doctors expected to release Chua today.

Hunt “made the difference,” Young said. “He bridged the two minutes that makes all the difference between a normal child and a brain-damaged child.”

Hunt, the father of an 8-year-old boy, downplayed his role. “I did what anybody should do,” he said.