Four Boys Save Drowning Toddler From Canal
Few things are more terrifying than losing track of your baby. It's every parent's nightmare - you take your eyes of your child for one moment and suddenly they're gone.
That's what happened in the case of three-year-old Alice Falk, of Farmersville, California, who wandered off and fell into a canal near her apartment complex. But in an amazing twist, when Alice’s mother called the local police department’s dispatch center to report the child as missing, officers realized that Alice had already been found.
In an act of small-town heroism, four boys ranging in age from 8 to 17 had saved her. Gilbert Hogan, 17, Victor Vasquez Jr., 12, George Castillo, 13, and Robert Vasquez, 8 spotted the little girl floating unconscious in a canal half a mile downstream of where she had fallen in.
The boys were looking for fish in the canal when they spotted something larger. They initially thought the floating object was a doll, but when they realized that it was pale purple in color, it became apparent that it was actually a young girl who was frighteningly close to death.
According to the Visilia Times-Delta, Alice was unconscious and not breathing when the four boys plunged into the canal and pulled her from the water.
“It was just instinct,” Vasquez told reporters. “At that moment, I forgot everything. I was in shock. I have never experienced anything like that.”
Victor Vasquez, one of the boys’ father, was able to successfully perform CPR on the girl and get her breathing again before an ambulance arrived. Alice is expected to make a full recovery from the incident.
Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that it was a fluke that the boys were even near the creek that evening. The two Vasquez brothers had been told to come home but had gotten permission from their father to play a little longer.
"It was an act of God," Vasquez told the Fresno Bee. "I think a little angel was right next to her and the kids were able to see her."
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