NSU-Ft. Myers Student Rescues Drowning Child

April 11, 2012

Nicole Reynolds, PA-S

On March 25^th, 2^nd year PA Student Nicole Reynolds, about to begin her Internal Medicine rotation for Nova Southeastern-SW Florida’s PA Program, had just arrived in Clewiston seeking the apartment that she would be staying in during her clinical rotation.  While driving through a neighborhood in circles, lost while trying to find her apartment, she came around a corner and encountered a situation that would forever change her life, and ultimately save another.

“There was a young girl in the road waving her arms and crying. I rolled down my window and asked what was wrong and she pointed to the pool and yelled "My brother, my brother’".

Nicole immediately pulled her car over and ran over to the gate of the local community swimming pool, where she found a crying mother speaking in Spanish and pointing at the pool.  It quickly became obvious to Nicole that a child was at the bottom of that pool.  Apparently her child had snuck away earlier and squeezed through the gate and fallen into the pool, unbeknownst to the mother.  The mother did not know how to swim and apparently was also unable to squeeze through the gate or scale over it. 

"I realized at that moment that I'm just going to go, I just reacted," Nicole told NaplesNews.com last week. "You get that adrenaline rush and you do what you think you should do."

“I just dropped my keys, kicked off my shoes and dove in,” Nicole recently told me, after contacted when her NapleNews.com story was discovered by FAPA leaders. “When I got the kid out of the water, I took one look at him and knew that I needed to start CPR. He had no pulse and was severely cyanotic. After nearly 5 minutes of CPR I noticed him start to spit up water and saw his chest moving. At that point I checked and he had a strong carotid pulse. EMS/Fire/Police showed up soon after and took him to Hendry Regional Medical Center.”

"It doesn't surprise me she would do something like that," Brenda Diaz, Reynolds' professor and academic adviser, told NaplesNews.com. "We strive to prepare these individuals to not only do their job well, but to do it with compassion, humility and a deep sense of caring. This is a perfect example of that."

Nicole tells us that the child, who she guesses is around the age of 5 or 6, is alive and well, and was discharged from the hospital sometime last week. 

It was a great feeling to be able to help someone outside of the medical setting and I feel that PA programs do an excellent job of preparing us to do so,” Nicole tells me.  “We are trained to get to know our patients, to listen to them, and to care about them. I know my classmates would have done the same thing in my position and that is why I feel like this is a victory for all of us and a testament as to what we can do. I have loved this profession since the day I set foot in the classroom and am so excited to get started on my career in August.“

Those of us in FAPA are extremely proud of Nicole, as I am sure many people are, for her heroic selfless deed.  Courage, Compassion and Devotion are what exemplify this great physician assistant profession of ours, and Nicole Reynolds is a shining example of these traits.  We are all deeply inspired by Nicole’s story and are proud to have her as a soon-to-be member of our great profession, as well as a member of the Florida Academy of Physician Assistants!

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Eric S. Smith, MMS, PA-C
     FAPA Past President/ Webmaster 

Nicole’s story was also featured on April 6^th by NaplesNews.com and can be found at: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/apr/06/naples-woman-revives-boy-found-at-bottom-of-a/