Child, 3, Saved from Drowning in Middlesex County

South Brunswick, NJ - A bystander who immediately started doing CPR and two police officers saved a 3-year-old East Brunswick child from drowning Saturday evening in South Brunswick Township, police there report.

At 6:45 p.m. Saturday, Officers George Morgan and Jared Harpster were dispatched to a Rt. 1 residence near Whispering Woods Boulevard in South Brunswick for a 911 call of a child who drowned in an in-ground pool. When the officers arrived, they found a crowd of people in the backyard with one bystander, a woman, performing CPR. Both officers continued rescue efforts and the child began to breath again. Paramedics and members of the Monmouth Junction First Aid Squad arrived and transported the child to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.

Officers learned that the 3-year-old victim who lives in East Brunswick was at the party with his father. At some point the child was in the pool holding on to a raft and lost his grip. He fell to the bottom of the pool. Witnesses say he was taken out of the pool within minutes, but described him as being blue and not breathing. One of the people at the party knew CPR and started efforts to revive the child.

Hospital officials listed the child in fair condition late Saturday night.

"The bystander's quick efforts to revive the child and the officers rapid response and intervention saved this child's life," said South Brunswick Police Chief Raymond Hayducka. "This Father's Day could have been tragic if not for the efforts of Officer Morgan, Officer Harpster and the bystander."