Hero boy, 4, dies after saving 3-year-old girl in pool

TrackerSam

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The parents of Xander Vento, a little boy who was forced under the water while saving another child at a neighborhood pool in Fort Worth, Texas, earlier this week, says they are taking their son off of life support.
Xander, 4, held a struggling 3-year-old girl above the water, and after becoming exhausted, slipped below the water’s surface, the Associated Press reported. He was found at the bottom of the pool. After Xander was pulled from the water, rescuers did get a pulse from him, the Dallas Morning News reported, but he was unable to breathe on his own before they loaded him into a helicopter.

Adults were present at the pool during the incident, including an off-duty nurse who helped rescue the children, according to the Dallas Morning News. It wasn’t clear where the adults were when the incident happened.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...ies-after-saving-3-year-old-girl-in-pool?lite

Poor little guy.:heartbeat:
 
I was just reading about this. A tragedy. I noticed many people referring to "water wings" in the comments on this story. Not saying water wings were involved here (or not). Just want to say, parents, please don't use those silly water wings and think they provide anything but a false sense of security. When I earned my lifesaving certificate I learned this, as well as to always employ the buddy system, even if a strong swimmer. Many reputable swimming areas prohibited all flotation devices except for regulation life jackets back in the day. People need to learn to swim or stay away from the water and that includes parents and children. Pay attention when in a swimming area and don't rely on those water wings. (Can you tell they annoy the H out of me?)

RIP Xander.

Eve
 
I was just reading about this. A tragedy. I noticed many people referring to "water wings" in the comments on this story. Not saying water wings were involved here (or not). Just want to say, parents, please don't use those silly water wings and think they provide anything but a false sense of security. When I earned my lifesaving certificate I learned this, as well as to always employ the buddy system, even if a strong swimmer. Many reputable swimming areas prohibited all flotation devices except for regulation life jackets back in the day. People need to learn to swim or stay away from the water and that includes parents and children. Pay attention when in a swimming area and don't rely on those water wings. (Can you tell they annoy the H out of me?)

RIP Xander.

Eve

Xander, what a brave and selfless heart in a such a liitle body. So sorry for his family's loss. Hope it's a little comfort knowing he died saving someone smaller and weaker than himself.

As a fellow former lifeguard/swim instructor/WSI, excellent post. :clap:

For me, having saved a couple little ones who were going under, I choose to always be in the water with my son, because things can go badly very quickly.

Hopefully his sacrifice will save others too through greater awareness.
 
The parents of Xander Vento, a little boy who was forced under the water while saving another child at a neighborhood pool in Fort Worth, Texas, earlier this week, says they are taking their son off of life support.
Xander, 4, held a struggling 3-year-old girl above the water, and after becoming exhausted, slipped below the water’s surface, the Associated Press reported. He was found at the bottom of the pool. After Xander was pulled from the water, rescuers did get a pulse from him, the Dallas Morning News reported, but he was unable to breathe on his own before they loaded him into a helicopter.

Adults were present at the pool during the incident, including an off-duty nurse who helped rescue the children, according to the Dallas Morning News. It wasn’t clear where the adults were when the incident happened.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...ies-after-saving-3-year-old-girl-in-pool?lite

Poor little guy.:heartbeat:
I read this story yesterday and put it on my FB - what a beautiful angel :beats:
 
This doesn't make any sense to me. How can a 4 YO be trying to hold a 3 YO up in the water and nobody notices? Was the 4 YO immediately overwhelmed and unable to cry out? I've read that people who are drowning are very quiet, but why didn't the 4 YO call out before he started trying to save the 3 YO? Something just sounds weird to me that two little kids were in the pool and drowning and nobody was looking at them?
http://amarillo.com/news/texas-news/2012-08-10/4-year-old-boy-dies-after-saving-drowning-girl
Medstar ambulance spokesman Matt Zavadsky says witnesses told paramedics that Xander and a 3-year-old girl were in the pool when the girl started to drown.
Bold by me - They witnessed this and did nothing? Or they came upon the scene later is probably more like it.
 
This doesn't make any sense to me. How can a 4 YO be trying to hold a 3 YO up in the water and nobody notices? Was the 4 YO immediately overwhelmed and unable to cry out? I've read that people who are drowning are very quiet, but why didn't the 4 YO call out before he started trying to save the 3 YO? Something just sounds weird to me that two little kids were in the pool and drowning and nobody was looking at them?
http://amarillo.com/news/texas-news/2012-08-10/4-year-old-boy-dies-after-saving-drowning-girl

Bold by me - They witnessed this and did nothing? Or they came upon the scene later is probably more like it.

I want to know where the adults were?
How can 2 kids go off alone - assuming nobody was at this pool.
I do think that something’s have not been said, hope they are not taking it lightly and are investigation.
 
I want to know where the adults were also. With 4 year old and a 3 year old in the pool-where was the adult supervision?
 
This doesn't make any sense to me. How can a 4 YO be trying to hold a 3 YO up in the water and nobody notices? Was the 4 YO immediately overwhelmed and unable to cry out? I've read that people who are drowning are very quiet, but why didn't the 4 YO call out before he started trying to save the 3 YO? Something just sounds weird to me that two little kids were in the pool and drowning and nobody was looking at them?
http://amarillo.com/news/texas-news/2012-08-10/4-year-old-boy-dies-after-saving-drowning-girl

Bold by me - They witnessed this and did nothing? Or they came upon the scene later is probably more like it.

I think this is a problem in reporting, not that the adults were negligent or engaged in suspicious activity, but the same questions occurred to me. Are the adults just repeating what the 3-year-old told them after the fact? Or did they see the struggle and not realize what was going on until it was too late to save Xander?

Most of us think of drowning as a solitary event. I wonder if adults saw the two children together in the water and just assumed they were playing because two kids were involved. If your eyes were scanning the pool and a lot of children were moving about and shouting, you might not have realized how long Xander had been under the water. (I hope it's clear I am NOT blaming the heroic 4-year-old, just saying that the circumstances may have been unusual enough that the adults didn't realize the danger.)
 
It just seems odd to me that the 4 YO could apparently recognize that the 3 YO needed help, but no adults could see that the two little kids were in trouble. Yes, the reporting is a problem. I notice this with a lot of news stories. It's very unclear what these "witnesses" saw and how much came from the 3 YO. Somehow I don't see the 3 YO being able to tell what happened very accurately, but I could be wrong. It also seems kind of unlikely to me that a 4 YO could hold up a 3 YO long enough for the 3 YO to get to safety or however it happened, which is also unclear.
 
Yes, it's very badly reported. How did Xander end up on the bottom of the pool if he was supporting the 3-year-old? Or did he swallow water and sink, leaving the younger child to struggle and that's what finally attracted the attention of the rescuing nurse?

And why weren't they able to restart Xander's breathing? He can't have drowned for too long, or was he overlooked in the rush to save the younger child?

As I said (and I was a certified lifeguard as a teen), I don't think drowning is usually thought of or trained for as a two-victim emergency. I think the danger to Xander may have been overlooked just long enough to prove fatal. (This is not necessarily to blame the adults at the pool. I'm saying this event may have just been unusual enough that the adults misread the situation.)
 
Yes, it's very badly reported. How did Xander end up on the bottom of the pool if he was supporting the 3-year-old? Or did he swallow water and sink, leaving the younger child to struggle and that's what finally attracted the attention of the rescuing nurse?

And why weren't they able to restart Xander's breathing? He can't have drowned for too long, or was he overlooked in the rush to save the younger child?

As I said (and I was a certified lifeguard as a teen), I don't think drowning is usually thought of or trained for as a two-victim emergency. I think the danger to Xander may have been overlooked just long enough to prove fatal. (This is not necessarily to blame the adults at the pool. I'm saying this event may have just been unusual enough that the adults misread the situation.)
I'm confused too because the first line in the article says he was "forced under the water", it also states he slipped from exhaustion. So which was it? Also, how was the 3-year-old girl rescued but not him? Did they see him holding her up??? Many unanswered questions, but more raised from the article. Poor reporting if you ask me...
 
the adults should've been IN the pool WITH the children

and that's all I'm gonna say about that

Rest peacefully Xander
 
the adults should've been IN the pool WITH the children

and that's all I'm gonna say about that

Rest peacefully Xander

Maybe, but lifeguards, for example, are specifically forbidden from entering the water except to perform a rescue. You can't really see much if your eyes are at water level.

But I agree that no 3-year-old or 4-year-old should be in a pool without constant adult supervision. Hell, when my grandkids were that age and came to visit, we always had at least three adults watching the three kids whenever they were swimming.
 
Bless his little heart.

Rest in peace Xander.
 
Yes, it's very badly reported. How did Xander end up on the bottom of the pool if he was supporting the 3-year-old? Or did he swallow water and sink, leaving the younger child to struggle and that's what finally attracted the attention of the rescuing nurse?

And why weren't they able to restart Xander's breathing? He can't have drowned for too long, or was he overlooked in the rush to save the younger child?

As I said (and I was a certified lifeguard as a teen), I don't think drowning is usually thought of or trained for as a two-victim emergency. I think the danger to Xander may have been overlooked just long enough to prove fatal. (This is not necessarily to blame the adults at the pool. I'm saying this event may have just been unusual enough that the adults misread the situation.)

I know we trained for it and drilled for it as potentially a two person drowning, as well as how to safely approach a victim and break their holds as need be, because often a drowning person is panicked and focused solely on survival. If someone's in their reach, they can grab hold and not let go, and try to climb on top of the rescuer, even if both are going down. We drilled hard on how to break two apart, or free ourselves. We'd have one lifeguard play the victim and when a rescuer got within a few feet, grab the guard and take them under, not letting them go. It was a fight for survival, and then to rescue. It also drove home the point to use the ring, buoy, or hook when possible.

That's why I hope it really was he intended and tried to help her. I think this was a community pool w/o a guard? And I read in one article the two little ones were in the deep end. The pools I worked at had a buoy rope separating the deep from the shallow end, and kids had to swim all the way across the pool without stopping to prove their skills before they could get into the deep end. Our little community pool here also has no guard and no rope to designate the deep end.

Xander deserves a lot of credit for trying to help her. On one of my rescues, the pool was really busy, I was constantly scanning as guards do, but it was easy to tell when this girl went under as all the kids around her scattered like oil with a drop of soap added. They couldn't get away fast enough. And that's good from a guard's perspective, so you only have one victim to grab. Just pointing it out to say he went against instinct to try to help. Sweet boy.

I haven't seen anything about where the parents were. I have seen a lot of parents who put their kids in danger by not watching them while in the pool. We actually used to kick parents out of our pools if their kids couldn't swim and they refused to be with/watch them. Community pools w/o guards in particular rely on adults being vigilant. Idk what happened here entirely, but hopefully it reminds us all to watch our kids.

Moo
 
I know we trained for it and drilled for it as potentially a two person drowning, as well as how to safely approach a victim and break their holds as need be, because often a drowning person is panicked and focused solely on survival. If someone's in their reach, they can grab hold and not let go, and try to climb on top of the rescuer, even if both are going down. We drilled hard on how to break two apart, or free ourselves. We'd have one lifeguard play the victim and when a rescuer got within a few feet, grab the guard and take them under, not letting them go. It was a fight for survival, and then to rescue. It also drove home the point to use the ring, buoy, or hook when possible.

That's why I hope it really was he intended and tried to help her. I think this was a community pool w/o a guard? And I read in one article the two little ones were in the deep end. The pools I worked at had a buoy rope separating the deep from the shallow end, and kids had to swim all the way across the pool without stopping to prove their skills before they could get into the deep end. Our little community pool here also has no guard and no rope to designate the deep end.

Xander deserves a lot of credit for trying to help her. On one of my rescues, the pool was really busy, I was constantly scanning as guards do, but it was easy to tell when this girl went under as all the kids around her scattered like oil with a drop of soap added. They couldn't get away fast enough. And that's good from a guard's perspective, so you only have one victim to grab. Just pointing it out to say he went against instinct to try to help. Sweet boy.

I haven't seen anything about where the parents were. I have seen a lot of parents who put their kids in danger by not watching them while in the pool. We actually used to kick parents out of our pools if their kids couldn't swim and they refused to be with/watch them. Community pools w/o guards in particular rely on adults being vigilant. Idk what happened here entirely, but hopefully it reminds us all to watch our kids.

Moo

We were certainly trained on dealing with one panicked drowning victim, but I don't remember anything being said about rescuing two at a time. If they've added that to the training, good!

And I agree that at a community pool, too many parents allow themselves to be distracted, assuming that somebody will see any kids who get in trouble. Fatal assumption, it appears, in this case.

I also wondered about the design of the pool, as shown in the first link. Not only was there no rope to designate the deep end, but the pool seems built around a concrete island. Looks cool, but it can only make it more difficult to keep track of kids in the water.
 

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