A man was enjoying a swim at a picturesque lake near his home when he suddenly felt something oddly soft brush his leg unexpectedly. As soon as he realized what it was, he sprung from the water, screaming for help from others nearby as ho/rror set in.
Angelo Mondragon (Photo Credit: Facebook)
Angelo Mondragon was waist deep in the water, enjoying a weekend swim with family and friends when he felt something drift by his leg. The 32-year-old man recalled that what he felt was unusually soft, but he never imagined what it would turn out to be.
“It felt like something you normally wouldn’t feel in the water,” Mondragon recalled, describing the moment something touched him from beneath the surface of the lake. Although it’s always unnerving to come into contact with something unexpected in a natural body of water, in this particular case, it wasn’t Mondragon’s life that was in danger, it was 4-year-old little girl’s.
something touch his leg. (Photo Credit: Screenshot/CBS)
After feeling something strange against his skin, Mondragon kicked his leg in an effort to stir up the water, hoping to see what touched him. To his horror, a tiny foot came to the surface. “I did sort of a back kick to bring up whatever it was,” he said, recalling his knee-jerk reaction. “Then, I saw the bottom of a baby’s foot float up.”
Terrified, Mondragon reached for the foot, grasping the leg attached to it and pulling a lifeless and blue body to the surface as he screamed for help from those nearby. “I grabbed her and carried her limp body to the shore,” Mondragon said. “The girl was already blue. She wasn’t breathing.” The child, later identified as 4-year-old Sitlaly Hernandez, needed to be resuscitated.
Sitlaly Hernandez (Photo Credit: Screen capture/CBS)
Miraculously, two off-duty nurses were also at the lake that day. Responding to Mondragon’s screams for help, they ran to Hernandez’s side and performed CPR until emergency services arrived and transported the little girl to a local hospital, but she wasn’t out of the woods yet. After being unconscious in the water and not breathing for an extended period, only time would tell what permanent damage had been done.
Sitlaly had suffered hypothermia, her lungs were filled with fluid, and doctors worried about how long her brain had been without oxygen, CBS reported. She was eventually transported to a children’s hospital about an hour away, where she once again experienced a miracle. Within three days, the 4-year-old was jumping around, playing with her brothers and sisters. She eventually made a full recovery, thanks to the efforts of Mondragon and the nurses at the lake that day.