Child Rescued as Crippled Mother Looks On

For several seconds Lorena Chocotec lived a mother’s worst nightmare: Her 2-year-old daughter, Erica, was floating face down in a swimming pool, and Chocotec, polio-stricken and unable to swim, could do nothing but scream.

Moments later, her neighbor, 16-year-old Steven Perez, leaped over the fence and into the pool and pulled the little girl out. Although he did not know cardiopulmonary resuscitation, he frantically pumped her chest and stomach.

His quick thinking, authorities said, saved Erica. She regained consciousness, and a checkup at Humana Hospital-West Anaheim revealed that she suffered only some water in her lungs.

“The doctor told me she’ll be all right and that she will not suffer anything permanent,” said a teary but happy Chocotec on Friday. “She won’t remember what happened. I will never forget.”

Chocotec, who contracted polio as a child in Mexico, leaned against her crutch as she watched her daughter play with Steven in the back yard and recounted what happened Thursday. Around 11:45 a.m. she noticed that Erica, whom she had seen minutes before, was gone. At the same time, a visiting friend told Chocotec she heard a splash in the back yard.

Chocotec said Erica may have removed a piece of wood that held a sliding glass door closed. While the friend ran to get help, Chocotec struggled on her crutch to the back yard where she saw her daughter floating face down in the middle of the pool. Feeling helpless, Chocotec lay by the pool and extended her crutch toward the toddler.

“I couldn’t jump in because I can’t swim,” Chocotec recalled in Spanish, tears streaming down her face. “All I could do was wave my pole (crutch) and scream to her: ‘Erica, please, please reach for the pole!’ ”

It was not long before Steven arrived and pulled the toddler from the water.

“She was still, her lips were blue and I was so scared that I wouldn’t be able to do anything,” he recalled.

He did not know CPR, but remembered from football training at school that he had to get the water out of Erica’s system, he said.

“When she threw up, I was happy because I knew I did the right thing and that she was going to live,” he said.

“I don’t want to think of what could have happened if he wasn’t around,” Chocotec said. “I thank God for him because he saved my daughter.”