"We got her to the hospital alive:" Paramedics work to save life of 13-year-old found unresponsive in pool

CUDAHY (WITI) -- A close call in Cudahy, as a 13-year-old girl was found unresponsive in the Cudahy Middle School pool. The superintendent of the Cudahy School District is commending staff and students for taking quick action to help save the girl's life.

It happened on Thursday morning, February 19th.

Officials say students were swimming in the pool inside Cudahy Middle School when the 13-year-old girl became unresponsive after apparently suffering some sort of medical emergency.

Cudahy's superintendent says a teacher called 911 and immediately began performing CPR.

Emergency response officials say in incidents like this one, seconds count. That's why it was lucky that the Cudahy Fire Department is located less than one minute from the school. Firefighters Justin Piper and Jared Kucik arrived at the school quickly.

"It's less than two blocks away from us, so jump in the rig and head over there. Pretty quick response time," Piper said.

"We were dispatched to the Cudahy Middle School for a student with difficulty breathing," Kucik said.

"We showed up on scene and found some staff doing CPR in the pool area of the school," Piper said.

"We took over the resuscitation," Kucik said.

"When we got in there, we took over with some life-saving techniques, helped with CPR. It's obviously a scary situation, especially for this incident. It's a 13-year-old. None of those scenarios are easy," Piper said.

'We got a pulse back and loaded her up and transported her to Children's," Kucik said.

The girl was taken to Children's Hospital, where she is recovering.

"When we transported her there, she was in a better state than when we had found her.  She was brought over there alive," Piper said.

Piper and Kucik say their actions were simply all in a day's work.

"Knowing we got her to the hospital alive is a good feeling," Kucik said.



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