If ever something good were to come from something bad, it was a judge ordering Charles Cordier to undergo lifesaving training after police caught him and friends in a stolen car.
That was half a lifetime ago for Cordier, 31, of Denver, but his rusty CPR skills saved a life.
About 2 p.m. Thursday, the maintenance man at the Pine Creek Apartments, 600 S. Dayton St., heard a commotion as residents of the Denver complex pulled a lifeless 6-year-old boy from the swimming pool. As everyone stood helplessly over the child, Cordier rushed to provide CPR.
“The little boy was already gone; he was dead,” Cordier said. “His lips were purple, and so many adults and teenagers were standing around him, none of them knew CPR and they had already committed him to be dead.”
It took five minutes of blowing in the boy’s mouth and pumping his chest before the child went into convulsions, began vomiting and started breathing again. Paramedics arrived and rushed the boy, whose identity was not released Thursday, to the Medical Center of Aurora- South Campus.
A hospital spokeswoman said the boy was in good condition but would be admitted overnight for observation. The boy’s parents declined to comment.
“It wasn’t like in ‘Baywatch,’ when the person just spits up water,” Cordier said.
“I just really wanted to see him alive again.”
The boy was in the shallow end of the pool with his 19-year-old sister, apartment manager Carrie Schwab said. Apparently, the boy’s sister lost sight of him, and then other residents saw him floating facedown.
“Charles just kept at it and finally got the little guy breathing again,” Schwab said. “The paramedics called back later to say the boy appeared to be doing fine and that Charles definitely saved the kid’s life.”
Denver Fire Department officials said it appeared the boy would survive.
The boy’s family had moved to the apartment complex within the past month, Schwab said. His parents were at work when the accident happened.
Cordier, who has worked at the complex for two years, said he was arrested when he was 16 years old for being a passenger in a stolen car. As punishment, a judge ordered him to take part in a life-skills program that included CPR training. He said he has since taken a refresher course but is long overdue for another.
Cordier credited his Lakota Sioux and Hispanic heritage for giving him strength through the ordeal.
“God and the Great Spirit came through for me and that boy today,” he said.
Cordier’s dramatic rescue was the first of two near-drownings in Denver on Thursday, Fire Department spokesman Phil Champagne said. About an hour later and a mile away at the Renaissance Apartments, 550 Alton Way, an unidentified man found his child floating in the pool, Champagne said.
The child was not breathing, and a friend of the father’s started CPR. The child was breathing and responsive by the time he was taken to a nearby hospital.
No further information was available, Champagne said.
The same paramedics responded to both near-drownings, Champagne said.
“It was a crazy day,” Schwab said. “But it has a happy ending, and we’re happy with Charles about that.”
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-820-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
