A heroic Kansas man swung into action to revive a drowning autistic boy in an emotional rescue caught on camera earlier this month.
According to The Topeka Capital-Journal, 4-year-old Javier Rigne, who is non-verbal, exited his mother’s Lawrence apartment on May 18 to enter the closed pool of the complex.
The security video showed the boy wearing a diaper took a step into the deep end and was immediately completely submerged.
He began trying in vain to reach for something to climb and quickly became unresponsive.
Neighbor Maddox Westerhaus, 12, saw Xavier underwater and told his father, Tom, who jumped over a closed fence and pulled the boy out of the water.
According to the article, he was submerged in water for 200 seconds – about three and a half minutes.
Tom Westerhaus, a former lifeguard, held chest compressions for about three minutes until officers arrived. When Rob Fleep, chief of the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical Battalion, arrived at the scene, the boy was reportedly awake and breathing.
The Actions of Father and Son Were “One of the Most Heroic Things” [he had] Ever seen,” Flepp said at Thursday’s ceremony to celebrate the rescue.
“We’re so happy to celebrate this positive outcome,” Flepp reportedly said, “because too often, these stories don’t lead to a positive outcome.”
The boy’s mother, Alexis Rigne, thanks her neighbors during the event at the Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical Administrative Offices.
He told reporters that he had left him alone for a few seconds to see his sister when he left for the pool.
“Javier is my best friend, and I don’t know what I would do without him,” Rigne reportedly said through tears.
Reportedly, Westerhaus last received CPR training 15 years ago.
