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"Get Us to Land"
Reardon reached out to touch the car and skimmed along it, feeling for the door. He found the driver's-side window, already broken from the crash. Crawling through, he didn't see the boy at first. He shimmied into the backseat. Reardon was almost nose-to-nose with the child before he saw dark, unblinking eyes staring back.The boy was still securely locked by his seat belt. Reardon groped for the buckle, touched the cold metal and snapped it open. He grabbed the front of the boy's shirt. The little, limp frame moved almost weightlessly with him. Reardon maneuvered him through the window, then kicked for the surface. Was he bringing up a dead boy?
When Kelli Earle saw the man in cutoff jeans resurface, carrying a small body, she kicked off her flip-flops, jumped in feet first and swam to the fishing boat. "I'm a nurse," she said. "Let me help." One of the men on the boat pulled her aboard.
She went to little Amar, tilted his head back to clear his airway, gave him two rescue breaths and then checked his pulse. His heart had stopped beating. His pupils were dilated. His skin was deathly pale, his lips blue.
The bay water was cool, but probably not cold enough to help preserve brain function as icy water sometimes does. The boy needed air -- and fast. Earle began CPR. With each compression, fluid from the child's lungs and stomach spewed out onto her. The rocking boat didn't make the procedure any easier. And the boy's terrified mother grasped Earle, clawing at her. "Help him. Please, help him."
Earle ignored her and tried to stay focused. "Get us to land," she called to the boat captain.
A police officer met the boat and joined Earle in doing CPR. He compressed the boy's chest, while Earle blew air into his mouth. They kept up the rhythm, minute after minute -- on a completely unresponsive body. Finally an ambulance arrived.
EMTs laid Amar on a stretcher and hooked him up to their equipment. They covered the child's nose and mouth with an oxygen mask that could be hand-pumped. As the EMTs wheeled Amar into the ambulance, Earle checked his vital signs and turned to the distraught parents. "Do you pray?" she asked. The mother nodded. "Now's the time," the nurse said.
Officer Luis Vasquez, the second policeman on the scene, accompanied Amar in the ambulance. A diver with the Tampa Police Department, Vasquez had pulled a number of children from the waters during his 17 years as a cop. None had survived.
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