It’s a good thing Emma Campbell looked outside Saturday afternoon.
From her balcony at Aviara Apartments, Emma Campbell, a Santa Fe College student, saw a boy in the complex pool at about 3:45 p.m.
As 16-year-old Zyvion Speed-Mitchell lay motionless under the water, Campbell realized he wasn’t playing.
“She ran out of her apartment and jumped the fence and jumped in and saved him,” Zyvion’s mother, Carmelia Speed, said.
Campbell dragged his limp body to the surface and performed CPR until paramedics arrived.
If the rescue had taken just a few minutes longer, Zyvion could have suffered cardiac arrest, permanent brain damage or death, said Gainesville Fire Rescue Operations Chief Michael Cowart.
After the body goes without oxygen for more than about six minutes, muscle tissue begins to die, he said.
Zyvion, a sophomore at Eastside High School, does not remember the incident well, but his mother said it’s clear who saved him.
Even as her son recovers at UF Health Shands Hospital, Speed cannot believe Zyvion came so close to disaster.
Since the Gainesville Police Department posted about the rescue on its Facebook page Saturday, more than 10,000 people have liked it, as of press time.
Campbell has declined every interview thus far, GPD spokesman Officer Ben Tobias said.
“It’s just something embedded in certain people where they feel called to help, but they don’t necessarily want the recognition,” Cowart said.
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Speed heard a knock at her door Saturday afternoon.
She was confused after receiving the news from one of Zyvion’s friends.
Why would her son, who is scared of water and doesn’t know how to swim, go near a pool?
Speed then grabbed her 12-year-old daughter and took a five-minute drive to the apartment complex.
“When I got there, I saw some of the kids from the neighborhood, and they stopped my car and told me that Zyvion had drowned, and that he was in the ambulance on his way to the hospital,” she said.
At Shands, nurses directed Speed to her son’s hospital room, where doctors said he would be OK.
Speed said she greeted Campbell with a strong hug and showered her with praise.
“She’s definitely part of our family for the rest of our lives,” she said. “I mean, she saved my son.”
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On Feb. 28, another Santa Fe student jumped into action.
Rachel Sheehan, 18, noticed a man in cardiac arrest at the Oaks Mall, at which point she applied CPR and then followed him to the hospital, Cowart said.
He said 70 percent of people want to help in an emergency situation but don’t know how.
“Having that knowledge and being able to know how to react in case something happens is invaluable,” Cowart said.
