Wildfire crew save drowning boy from hotel pool

A crew who had been assigned to help fight the Dixie Fire ended up saving a young boy from drowning after a hotel pool accident.

First responders who were on the ground to help battle California’s biggest wildfire heard a mother screaming, reports CBS Sacramento.

Rushing to help, they found her 10-year-old son partially unresponsive in the hotel pool. The paramedics jumped over the fence and began to perform CPR on the boy.

Cal Fire’s Butte Unit posted a video recapping the events of the close call on Sunday.

Brian Basso from Oxnard Fire Department, said in the video that when they got to they boy: “He had water in the lungs and was not breathing, and he had no pulse.”

“We know what that means, it’s time to work,” said another paramedic.

The team administered the life-saving measures, and eventually the little boy sat up and started to cry.

According to one member of the team, there were sighs of relief all round. “It’s funny, as paramedics, you know, when kids cry that’s good – it means they have an airway,” he said.

Once the boy was breathing again, he was taken to hospital.

The team expressed their gratitude to have been at the right place at the right time – especially as it wasn’t the emergency they were expecting to face.

As of Sunday, the Dixie Fire had burned nearly 200,000 acres in Butte and Plumas counties. It merged with another Californian wildfire, called the Fly Fire, over the weekend, resulting in a single massive blaze which firefighters are still struggling to contain.

Many of those drafted in to help fight the Dixie Fire have just returned from Oregon, where the Bootleg Fire, the largest currently burning in the US, has already scorched more than 400,000 acres.