It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. A young child who doesn’t know any better walks off. He doesn’t just get lost, he walks right into a lake and starts to drown. What if no one sees him? An unimaginable tragedy captured on TikTok. This almost happened if not for the heroic, instinctive thinking of a mom who happened to be passing by.
The whole incident was caught on a security camera, and then the woman gave a little debriefing, soaking wet, about what just happened. Let’s start with the initial video.
We see a little dude just trotting around his yard before he goes behind a house. Text on the video says “So this [happened] yesterday in my backyard. I didn’t know until I looked on the camera after I heard the lady scream ‘HE’S IN THE WATER.'”
The camera switches to the backyard and the little guy is now sprinting toward something. He runs full speed to the edge of the water, pauses for a split second and then jumps right in like it was a solid surface.
He slips right in and immediately starts to drown. It is not fun to watch. He moves away from the edge and more in the middle. He flails around. OK, enough of that. Now to the heroics.
Next scene: The sound kicks on and we see two women. One of them screams the thing and starts sprinting, no hesitation. The other one is older and can’t move that fast. The now soaked woman pulls the drowning kid from the water. Next scene, kid is in his grandmother’s arms and smiling. No harm, no foul.
That could be the end of it, but the heroic woman, still soaking, records a debrief video.
She’s breathless and very wet. “I literally just threw myself into one of the lakes near my house to save a four-year-old boy who just like walked out of his house randomly, and he’s autistic, and he just walked and kept walking.”
Apparently the grandparent asked, “have you seen him?”
She starts to show off her wet clothes and takes off a boot full of water. “I didn’t even think,” she said. “I’m not even a swimmer.” You can tell the emotion of the moment is starting to sink in.
“I was so scared, but I think I save a little kid’s life today.” You indeed did, heroic swimmer. You indeed did.