By FR1 Staff
JERSEY CITY, N.J. – Three firefighters found themselves in the right place at the right time when an 11-year-old girl began having a seizure at a public pool.
Jersey City Fire Department Captain Ken Simone was with two other firefighters at the Lafayette Pool for a community outreach program when a woman began signaling to lifeguards that something was wrong with her daughter.
“She was swimming from side to side, and looked kind of spaced out, so I knew something was wrong,” Tanya Vaszquez told WLNY 2.
Vaszquez said her daughter had been taking medication for the last year to prevent seizures, but she had been keeping a close eye on her in the pool, just in case.
“I make sure I’m always around her because, as a mom, nobody knows your kid like you do,” she said.
When Simone and the other firefighters realized what was happening, they quickly pulled the girl from the pool and began working to save her.
“We put her on her side and she started to foam and vomit, and then we started to administer first aid to her,” Simone said.
All graduates of the Jersey City Fire Academy are required to be certified EMTs, a three-year policy that Vaszquez is grateful for, as lifeguards are not allowed to touch someone in the middle of a seizure.
The girl was taken to Jersey City Medical Center and later released.