PROVO, Utah (ABC 4 News) – A six year old girl is lucky to be alive after nearly drowning in the wave pool at Seven Peaks Water Park.
Around noon Friday witnesses say they noticed the lifeless body of a young girl and notified nearby lifeguards. “It took almost 20 seconds for someone to actually respond to what was going on,” said David Overstreet. “Everyone on the side was saying to the lifeguards ‘jump in, please someone jump in.’”The owner of Seven Peaks tells a different story. Gary Briton told ABC 4 the supervising lifeguard noticed the little girl struggling to swim and jumped in to save her. CPR was administered on the scene and paramedics say the little girl was breathing when they arrived minutes later.
Lynn Schofield, Provo City Fire Marshal said, “I’ve got nothing but props for the lifeguards. They did their job. They did what they were trained to do. What could have been an extreme tragedy was fixed because of proper training.”
By all accounts it appears as though the six year old was in the wave pool unsupervised. Two lifeguards escorted the little girl to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in the ambulance because her guardian couldn’t be found.
Briton tells ABC 4 the little girl’s mother was finally found and told about the event. She was headed to the hospital an hour after paramedics were called. The child is expected to stay in the hospital overnight.
