Central Los Angeles : Three Local Heroes Rescue Unconscious Boy From Pool

Jumping the eight-foot fence to beat the heat for free after hours at the 109th Street Park swimming pool in Watts is an almost daily ritual for neighborhood youngsters.

That summertime mischief, however, nearly killed an 11-year-old boy who recently sank to the bottom of the pool and passed out before being rescued by two teen-agers and a local handyman.

The rescue has made the three neighborhood residents heroes, and has alerted other residents to the danger of pool-crashing.

“I’m always afraid something might happen,” said Kim Thomas, 36, who lives across the street from the pool.

Recently, something did. About 6:30 p.m., neighbors heard screams of “Help! My cousin’s drowning!”

Tyrone Williams--a lifeguard at the pool in the 1960s--dashed off his porch to the pool. Two brothers playing soccer at a nearby field, Marco and Sergio Reyes, 17 and 16, followed.

The three climbed the fence and dove into the pool to pull up the boy, who was lying at the bottom of the deep end.

After Williams administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for three minutes, the boy struggled to consciousness, waking up to a cheering crowd.

Paramedics took the boy, whose parents declined to release his name, to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, where he stayed for three days.

“I feel 10 feet tall,” Williams said of the rescue.

Neighbors are trying to get increased police patrols or a higher fence to keep children out when the pool is closed.