RICHMOND, British Columbia (12 July 2007) -- Minutes before becoming a hero, lifeguard Shayne Reilly joked with the scuba diver he would later rescue that he didn't want to dive in if he didn't have to. As fate would have it, Reilly's instincts and skills helped save the life of Stacey Murchison in a dramatic Friday night rescue that played out in front of Murchison's wife and seven-year-old daughter at Watermania aquatic facility. "I talked to him briefly before and asked him how long he was going down for, and he told me he was going to be down for approximately 15 to 30 minutes," Reilly said of Murchison, a professional diver who does stunt work for the movie industry and had been at the pool testing his scuba gear when something went wrong. "And I joked with him and actually said 'I just wanted to know because I don't want to jump in.'" Two to three minutes later, Reilly returned after conducting a scan of the facility's 50-metre swimming pool, and saw a motionless Murchison floating at the bottom of the deep end. Though he guessed that Murchison might have been timing himself or holding his breath, Reilly's gut told him something wasn't right. "I just didn't feel comfortable, because he didn't look like he was moving, I didn't see any bubbles or anything along those lines." Reilly sounded his whistle to alert his fellow lifeguards that he was diving in, and dove to the pool's bottom, where he tapped the bottom of the pool in front of Murchison's face, expecting that Murchison would tell him to go away. But Murchison was unresponsive, and a slight nudge caused him to drift away, Reilly, 24, said. Perhaps propelled by adrenaline, Reilly used his 210-pound frame to power Murchison—who at 220 pounds was also saddled with a 50-pound belt—to the deck of the pool, where lifeguards Jessica Choi and Melanie Josephs helped pull Murchison out of the water. His face grey and lips completely blue, Murchison wasn't breathing and had no pulse, so the lifeguards, including Andrew Yu, began to perform cardio-pulmonary resuscitation with Murchison's family nearby. They managed to revive Murchison, who coughed up water and registered a pulse. Moments later, Murchison's pulse faded and was lost again. | | Lifeguard Shayne Reilly gets thanked by Stacey Murchison. Reilly saved Murchison's life on Friday night after something went wrong during a scuba equipment test at Watermania.  View larger imageBy that time, ambulance and fire crews arrived at the scene, and after another effort at resuscitating him, managed to get him breathing. As Murchison was being rushed to Vancouver General Hospital, Reilly was overcome by emotion. It was the first serious rescue of his four-year lifeguarding career. "I didn't know if he was going to pull through...so I was really upset," said Reilly, a Richmond High grad currently in the final semester of nursing at Langara and planning to go to medical school. Murchison visited the pool to say thanks on Sunday after being released from hospital. He blamed a malfunction with his scuba gear's breathing regulator for the incident. Aquatic supervisor Grant Nishi complimented his staff. "They did a very good job and obviously the result was very good too," he said. Similar rescues happen perhaps once or twice per year at Richmond's aquatic facilities, but rarely are they this serious, Nishi said. Nishi credits the rarity of such incidents with the focus on prevention. City of Richmond spokesperson Ted Townsend said the positive outcome is a real tribute to the quality of the staff at Watermania, in terms of the way they responded, and to the training that's in place which prepared them for emergencies. There are 160 lifeguard staff working in Richmond's numerous indoor and outdoor aquatic facilities, seven days per week, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. SOURCE - The Richmond ReviewSCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba Forum |
