Seckman High School wrestling coach Ryan Moyer’s quick action helped revive a 2-year-old girl who had fallen into a pool and stopped breathing, authorities said.
“(Moyer) had a direct impact on saving her,” Rock Township Ambulance Chief Jerry Appleton said.
Some Seckman High wrestlers who were outside running in a neighborhood near the school heard the girl’s mother screaming and alerted Moyer, who rushed into the backyard of a home on Hollow Oak Court in Imperial and performed CPR on the toddler.
“This reiterates that true first responders are our community and the importance of knowing CPR and first aid,” Appleton said. “Time makes the biggest impact. We can be three, four, five and up to 10 minutes away. That is the time that little girl could have been without oxygen. If it wasn’t for him, it could have had a very different outcome.”
Moyer, who also is a business teacher at Seckman High, said he was glad he was able to help the girl .
“I was in the right place at the absolute right time,” said Moyer, 34, of Wentzville.
Moyer, who is the head wrestling coach, and assistant wrestling coach Matt Manning were supervising a group of athletes during a preseason running exercise at about 4 p.m. Sept. 13 in the Arrow Ridge Subdivision, which is close to the school’s campus on 2800 Seckman Road in Imperial.
Moyer said he likes to have athletes run on the Copperleaf Drive hill, and he was at the bottom of the hill and had gotten into a car driven by Manning so they could catch up to the runners when he saw senior Autumn Dishner and juniors Lily McBride and Chloe Harmon walking along the side of the road looking around.
Moyer said initially he leaned out of the car window to tell the three wrestlers to at least try to jog up the hill, but the three girls yelled back at him that something was wrong.
“We heard this woman scream that her baby is not breathing,” said McBride, 15, of Imperial. “It was a lucky thing we were running in the neighborhood at that time.”
Moyer said he jumped out of the car and heard a woman screaming, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. He said he ran toward the woman’s voice, and as he got to the sidewalk near the Hollow Oak Court cul-de-sac off Copperleaf Drive, he heard the woman yell, “My baby drowned.”
“He got out of the car as fast as he could, ran over and jumped the fence,” McBride said. “He was running really fast to get over that fence to help.”
Moyer said when he got to the backyard, he saw a woman trying to resuscitate the child near an above-ground pool.
He said the woman was frantic and told him she didn’t know CPR.
Moyer said the child’s eyes were rolled back and her lips were blue. He also said she was unresponsive.
Moyer said he is certified to perform CPR because that is a Missouri State High School Activities Association’s requirement for coaches. He said he gets recertified every year.
“I asked the woman to move to the side and took action,” he said.
Moyer said he performed a few chest compressions on the child and then breathed into her mouth, but the child didn’t respond right away. He said he breathed into the child’s mouth a few more times and then the girl spit out a little water.
He said after that, he picked up the girl and began patting her back to try to get her to expel more water.
Moyer said he was told the girl fell off a flotation device and into the water before he arrived.
“After three to five minutes of tapping on her back, she ended up throwing up all over me,” Moyer said. “I kept patting her back to get the water out. She then threw up again. After the second time, she started getting color back in her skin and seemed to be coming back.”
He said a neighbor who is a nurse came into the backyard while he was performing CPR, and she called 911.
“It helped having her there; it relieved some stress,” Moyer said. “She helped me through the process.”
Appleton said Rock Township got a call about the drowning at 4:19 p.m. He said Rock Township Ambulance transported the child to a hospital.
Moyer said the girl was taken to Mercy Children’s Hospital St. Louis in Creve Coeur, and he returned to the house on Sept. 14 and was told the girl was expected to be released from the hospital that evening.
Rock Community Fire Protection District also responded to the call, and when firefighters arrived at the scene, the girl was awake and crying, public information officer Stephanie Jackson said.
“CPR is very important,” Jackson said. “We are working very diligently to get as many of our citizens in our district CPR certified. We offer classes once a month. They are usually the last Tuesday of the month. CPR is a skill I would love to see everyone have.”
Moyer said he thought about his own 2-year-old child while he was helping the girl.
“I am lucky things ended up on the good side of this,” he said. “If it went the other way, that would have been hard to deal with because I have a kid the same age. Once I knew things were working and it was going to end positively, that was a relief.”