LAWRENCE, Kan. - A father and his 12-year-old son are being hailed as heroes after authorities said they helped rescue a drowning, 4-year-old boy with autism from a pool.
Authorities in Lawrence, Kansas said little boy, Xavier Rigney, briefly got out of his mother's sight and somehow made his way through a locked fence before jumping into the pool."His head goes completely under the water.
His mouth and nose never come up above the water, and that's why we say they don't have the ability to scream," Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical Lt.
Jeff Krall, a paramedic who lost a child of his own in 2008, explained at a press conference. "What you see with his arms, you see just a little bit of movement, we call it climbing, they're trying to climb out of the water.RELATED: ABCs of Water SafetyThat was when 12-year-old Maddox Westerhouse saw what happened and ran to get his father, Tom, from their nearby apartment. RELATED: 'I’m not going to let you die': Pregnant mother rescues 3 girls from drowning in Lake Michigan"My friends were yelling at me to go get help and I just went like, 'Oh no,' and ran," Maddox said.Tom jumped over the 6-foot fence, pulled Xavier from the pool and started performing CPR.