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Penticton  

18-month-old found unresponsive, face down in Okanagan Lake

Baby found floating in lake

Blue lips, white skin, unresponsive — an 18-month-old boy found floating face down in Okanagan Lake this week was every parent's nightmare. 

Meghan Thompson was at Manitou Park in Naramata along with two friends and their kids around 1 p.m. Thursday. Her daughters, age 11 and 8, were out in the water. 

"My older daughter came running and said 'Mum, Mum, there's a kid and I don't think he's okay,'" Thompson said.

"I threw my things down and ran as fast as I could and he was floating face down in the lake, spread eagle, not moving, like dead."

Thompson grabbed the child, and recalls how heavy he felt, completely unresponsive as she picked him up and carried him from the waist-deep water to the shore. 

"I was screaming, 'Somebody help me! Somebody help me!'" Thompson said. "I'm holding this baby trying to run out of the lake, and then Chad Taylor who I know and is a firefighter in Naramata ran towards me and said 'Let me help you, I'm a firefighter.'"

Thompson passed the baby to Taylor for CPR, and was terrified by how the child looked: completely white, with bright blue lips. 

"We were on the phone with 911, and finally his mum came down," Thompson said. "Thankfully, eventually he started puking up water and came back to life a little bit and got a bit of colour back."

Naramata Volunteer Fire Department members arrived and then an ambulance took the boy away. Thompson has heard from a social worker at the hospital involved with the case that he was released after chest scans showing he was expected to recover. 

"Thank God my daughter noticed this baby. He was completely not breathing. If it was seconds more, he probably wouldn't have lived."

Thompson hopes this will remind other Okanagan families to be vigilant with their kids, educate about water safety and maybe brush up on their CPR training — which is exactly what Thompson and her friends who were on scene are planning to do after the harrowing experience. 

"It's crazy because it's not how people drown in movies, with flailing hands and screaming, nobody saw this baby in the lake except for, luckily, my daughter," Thompson said.

"For us in Penticton, we have water everywhere, and it's just super important to be aware of that ... I wouldn't have known what to do by myself. Thank God [first responders] were there to help me, because I didn't know what I was going to do with him when I got him back to the shore."

She urges all families enjoying summer activities to be aware.

"You don't ever think that kid could be your kid." 



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