The kids were prepared for the pool because there were birthday celebrations and a lot of relatives in the house.
Amy Steelman put Hannah, her two-year-old daughter, into her bathing suit and went upstairs to change before taking Hannah to the pool. Amy started hunting for Hannah as soon as she returned to the lower level. Her daughter was nowhere in sight, so she knew right away that something was wrong.
She remembers, "I just started running because I heard my aunt screaming."
She made her way to the above-ground pool and the wraparound balcony. She could see her daughter and her cousin's two-year-old daughter being rescued from the water from the door. Steelman calculates that they had both been floating face-down in the water for less than two minutes.
While her aunt and cousin conducted CPR on Hannah, she did so right away. The other 2-year-old was given CPR.
She stated, "It was very hectic." But my family is in the medical field. By God's grace, I was at ease. I knew she needed CPR. I instantly knew she would be OK when I gave her a breath and saw her chest lift.
Hannah began to take rescue breaths and do chest compressions after just one round.
She asserted, "I firmly believe they wouldn't have survived if we hadn't started CPR at the appropriate time." The amount of time you have is so limited.
When Amy completed medical courses, she learned CPR, and after graduating from high school, she started working as a patient care technician at Saint Francis Hospital.
Although it had been a while since she had worked there, she remarked, "I never forgot it." She has since completed multiple CPR refresher classes and begun sharing her story as a volunteer for the American Heart Association and Citizen CPR, a company that delivers AHA courses.
Steelman has dedicated her life to spreading CPR awareness. The two toddlers survived drowning, which is the most common cause of accidental death in children under the age of four.
She added, "Older people are not the only ones who may require CPR. After drowning, poisoning, electrical shock, choking, trauma, or any other incident that could result in the heart stopping, CPR can be applied."
Knowing CPR also aids the responders in maintaining their composure and attention.
She said, "I can't even imagine if none of us had known what to do." "It would have been awful to just sit there and wait for an ambulance."