Youths Save Two Boys From Drowning

Her clunky black boots almost weighed her down, but Maria Elias managed to pull a drowning teenager from the bottom of her community pool and revive him using CPR--a technique she had only read about but never performed.

It was one of two dramatic swimming pool rescues to take place over the last two days, the other involving a 12-year-old Stanton boy who pulled a drowning toddler to safety.

Maria, a 17-year-old Santa Ana resident, was on the courtyard side of a fenced-in swimming pool at her apartment complex on the 4100 block of West 5th Street about 8 p.m. when she heard screams and splashing noises coming from the deep end. A friend and neighbor, Jose Luis Torres, was thrashing wildly to avoid sinking when he found himself in 7 feet of water, police said.

“I didn’t really think about it while it was happening,” Maria said of the frantic rescue Friday night. “I just started moving.”

Jose, 16, does not know how to swim but had been “horsing around” with some friends in the shallow end of the pool, said his sister, Ana Torres, 18.

“He got pushed down somehow,” she said. “He was kicking and splashing and nobody could get to him.”

Struggling to climb the chain-link fence in her boots and jeans, Maria finally stood on a bicycle and jumped over. She lay down on the deck and grabbed the hand of one would-be rescuer who had exhausted himself trying to reach Jose. Once he was safely to the side of the pool, Maria leaped in herself.

“I swam to the bottom as fast as I could, but it was so hard to kick with all of my clothes,” she said. “When I got to him, I wasn’t sure I could pull him back up.”

But within a minute, Maria had Jose out of the water and sprawled across the pool deck. She and another resident began CPR, a procedure Maria said she had only seen performed on television.

“I wasn’t sure if we were doing it right, but then he started choking,” she said of Jose, a fellow Los Amigos High School student. “By then the paramedics were there.”

Jose was taken to Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center, where he remained Saturday in stable condition in the intensive care unit.

“He is a very lucky young man,” Santa Ana Police Sgt. Ken Ice said. “Seconds make all the difference in the world when you’re talking about a drowning.”

Maricela Torres, Jose’s sister, said the family is relieved that Maria was nearby and took action so quickly.

“Who knows what would have happened if she wasn’t there,” said Maricela Torres, 22. “My brother is alive and he is going to be OK, and we are very thankful for that.”

Maria shied away from the praise Saturday.

“I’m just glad I didn’t drown trying,” she said with a laugh.

In the second rescue, a 12-year-old Stanton youth is credited with saving the life of a 2-year-old boy who had fallen into the deep end of a swimming pool on the 7500 block of Syracuse Avenue in Stanton.

The child, Cody Krantz, was at the bottom of the pool Saturday afternoon when neighbor Daniel Adam Chesboro dove in and pulled him out, then pushed on the child’s stomach to get him breathing again, Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Scott Brown said.

Adam had been alerted by Cody’s 3-year-old brother, Kasey Krantz.

“The 3-year-old had the sense to go out front to get the attention of Chesboro, who ran to the backyard,” Brown said.

It is not known if there was any adult supervision at the time of the 12:49 p.m. incident, but by the time Adam pulled the child to safety, the mother of the boy had called 911.

“If it had not been for the actions of the 12-year-old, this child certainly would have been dead,” Brown said.

By the time paramedics arrived, the child was breathing on his own. He was taken to Columbia West Anaheim Medical Center. Hospital officials declined to discuss the child’s condition, and his mother could not be reached for comment.

Times staff writers Lisa Richardson and Roberto Manzano also contributed to this report.