The 17-year-old lifeguard Jóhann Ingi Gudbergsson saved a two-year-old girl from drowning yesterday in the swimming pool in Mosfellsbaer, near Reykjavík, where he had worked for only a week.
“I dropped everything and ran towards her. She was unconscious and I could only see the whites of her eyes,” Gudbergsson, who has a summer job at the pool, told Fréttabladid.
The girl, accompanied by her mother and an older sibling, had been playing in the waterslides and did not resurface after one of the rides. A swimming pool guest discovered the girl and brought her to the bank.
“She had been underwater for about two minutes. She wasn’t breathing and I couldn’t find a pulse. I gave her a mouth-to-mouth and CPR. It didn’t work at first and I thought we had lost her. But I wouldn’t give up,” Gudbergsson said.
“Then we saw a spark of life. Shortly after that she coughed up water but didn’t regain consciousness straight away. Then she started crying and that was great. It was good to hear her cry. I knew it was a good sign,” the young lifeguard said.
The ambulance arrived soon after and the girl was transported to the hospital. She was released shortly after her arrival.
Director of the Mosfellsbaer swimming pool, Jóhanna Gunnarsdóttir, said the pool is guarded at all times and that the staff is trained in emergency response.
