By Khalida Sarwari
Residents of a San Jose apartment complex where a young boy saved a 3-year-old girl and her grandfather from drowning last month are invited to come by the pool on Friday and learn CPR from first responders.
Firefighters and paramedics will stop by for about half an hour to teach residents basic hands-on compressions in 15-minute intervals.
The free training session will begin at 11 a.m. in the main pool area of the Park Kiely apartment complex, located at 355 Kiely Blvd.
The fire department this summer has responded to multiple near-drowning calls where good Samaritans performed CPR on their neighbors and saved their lives.
One of those heroes is 8-year-old Ishaan Singh, who lives at the Park Kiely complex with his parents and 4-year-old sister.
On Aug. 1, Ishaan leapt into action when his mother, who at the time did not know how to swim herself, called for him to jump in and help rescue two people she had seen floating in the pool. The two were the 3-year-old sister of Ishaan’s friend and her 69-year-old grandfather.
Ishaan dove in and pushed the little girl to the side of the pool while other residents helped pull her out. Meanwhile, a woman dove in and pushed the grandfather to the side of the pool, and he was also pulled from the water.
Bystanders administered chest compressions on both the man and the little girl until firefighters arrived.
Michael Petrie, director of the Santa Clara County Emergency Medical Services, said that by using hands-only CPR, bystanders could save the life of cardiac arrest victims without having to do mouth-to-mouth contact.
“I encourage everyone to learn hands-only CPR, because often, the life you save is that of your family or friends,” Petrie said in a statement.
