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Tag-team effort saves a little girl

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By KATIE CORONADO

kcoronado@wfla.com

Published: July 1, 2009

CITRUS PARK - Dollean Mercer and her friend Dedre Leobold were sitting by their apartment complex pool June 20 when they saw a girl being pulled out of the shallow end.

People were screaming for help: "Does anyone know CPR?"
Mercer and Leobold - both residents of the Westwood Reserve complex - ran over.

Leobold, who knew CPR from a previous job at a day care, helped the girl breathe while Mercer took care of the compressions. A third neighbor checked the girl's pulse. Another called 911.

Some people were holding towels over the girl, providing shade.

It was a "tag-team effort," said Mercer, who learned CPR about 25 years ago while serving as a sergeant in the U.S. Army.

Leobold agreed. "It was a really awesome collective of people. They all assigned themselves what to do."

When water started flowing out of the girl's mouth, they knew she would live.

Still, they did not stop working on the girl until paramedics arrived.

Everything happened so fast, they said, they never got a chance to find out who the girl was.

But as the girl left with paramedics, the women said a prayer. Later they got a call from the hospital.

The girl was OK.

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