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boy saved his drowning brother’s life — with help from the Rock’s ‘San Andreas’

D

Dalek

Member
How a boy saved his drowning brother’s life — with help from the Rock’s ‘San Andreas’

brothers.jpg


Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson called a 10-year-old Jacob O’Connor a hero after the boy saved his younger brother from drowning by performing chest compressions, which he learned from watching the movie “San Andreas.”

Jacob O’Connor saw his baby brother’s shoe floating in the pool first.

Then he saw his body.

It had been just a week since the 10-year-old Michigan boy last watched his favorite movie, “San Andreas,” an action drama that stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson rescuing his family from two hours of tragedy — an earthquake, a tsunami and, most relevant to Jacob, a near-drowning.

Johnson’s character pulls his unconscious daughter from floodwaters and gives her CPR, first in a collapsing building, then in a boat. Finally, she spits up water.
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So as Jacob pulled his 2-year-old brother Dylan from the pool and laid him on the deck, his mind channeled the action hero.

“The movie just popped up in my head and I started thinking about that scene,” Jacob, of Roseville, Mich., told The Washington Post. “And that’s when I started doing the compressions.”

For half a minute, Jacob said he pushed and pushed until Dylan’s “heart started pumping.” And then, just like the character’s daughter, Jacob’s brother “vomited a little water.”

Now, nearly a month later, Dylan has fully recovered and Jacob is being hailed a hero — by his family, local law enforcement and Johnson himself.

“You’re a real life hero,” Johnson wrote in one of four tweets about Jacob’s actions. “We’re all proud of you!”
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Jacob, who starts the fifth grade next month, isn’t so sure about all the fanfare. When asked if he feels like a hero, the boy responded with a “kind of.”

But Fire Chief Michael Holland is more certain.

“What an amazing thing, at 10 years old, to think in that stressful situation about what the right thing to do for your younger brother is — that’s stunning,” Holland told C&G Newspaper.

On the day of the incident, Jacob was in between episodes of “Lego Ninjago” with his brothers when he realized 2-year-old Dylan was gone — and the door to the backyard was wide open.
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Moments before, the toddler had been dancing in the kitchen, waiting for his Nana to put him down for a nap. Jacob was keeping an eye on him. But somehow, the boy said, Dylan managed to open the sliding door and get in the pool.

After giving Dylan chest compressions, Jacob said he ran inside to retrieve his grandmother, Ellen Viau. She resumed CPR on the toddler and called 911.

O’Connor was at work, cleaning a mansion 45 minutes away, when she learned what had happened. Viau, her mother, called from the ambulance as it sped toward St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit. At the hospital, she found Dylan lying in bed on oxygen with two IVs hooked up to his arm.

“I lost it,” she told The Post. “I bawled my eyes out.”

That was before she learned what Jacob had done. Once Dylan was stabilized at the hospital, O’Connor ran home to talk with Jacob. They sat on the front porch and O’Connor asked her eldest son where he had learned to do chest compressions.

“I saw it in a movie,” she remembers him saying.

“What movie?” she asked.

“San Andreas,” Jacob replied. “With the Rock.”
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And now Dwayne is going to fly the family out to Vancouver to meet him and celebrate.

bNJ5Fqx.png
 
L

lucebuce12

Member
Amazing what the kid did.
"Jacob, who starts the fifth grade next month, isn’t so sure about all the fanfare. When asked if he feels like a hero, the boy responded with a “kind of.”
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This is a good kid right here.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Unrealistic depictions of CPR in movies actually save a real person's life. First time for everything, I guess.
 
D

Derwind

Member
The Rock is the best thing to come out of the WWE. Dude is just an awesome human being.

Also props to the kid, he has the making of a first responder and I hope he continues to help others like he did his younger brother.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Slaythe said:
It's cpr not heart surgery. Not like it's impossible to depict correctly.
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Agreed, but I have yet to see a film that actually does it, let alone accurately depicts that you're probably not going to be walking off getting wailed on; this case is fortunate in that the victim and rescuer were both young and comparatively weak, which prevents possible damage and complications like breaking the xiphoid process by bad hand positioning, which can cause internal injuries to vital organs.
 
R

ratcliffja

Member
Derwind said:
The Rock is the best thing to come out of the WWE. Dude is just an awesome human being.

Also props to the kid, he has the making of a first responder and I hope he continues to help others like he did his younger brother.
Click to expand...
Cena seems like a great guy too along with Batista. It's a good thing that their three most popular mainstream stars right now all seem to be good people considering what a piece of crap Vince McMahon is.
 
F

Fou-Lu

Member
I'm very glad someone else was spared the pain of losing a brother this way at such a young age. Good job kid!
 
P

PeakPointMatrix

Member
There have been a few stories in the past of people either doing cpr or the Heimlich maneuver based on a cartoon or movie that accurately depicted it. It's pretty cool.
DiipuSurotu said:
Have they arrested the parents yet? What was a 2-year-old kid doing in a swimming pool without adult surveillance?
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He got himself out.

Although it should have been locked, and the kids supervised.
 
N

nel e nel

Member
Slaythe said:
It's cpr not heart surgery. Not like it's impossible to depict correctly.
Click to expand...

If you do chest compressions in the wrong spot you can potentially puncture lungs or other organs. If you do CPR incorrectly, you could potentially choke someone with their own tongue or shove a blockage further down the throat.

But all's well that ends well.
 
T

TetraGenesis

Member
This made me cry a little! To think his brother was that close to death and he saved his life -- incredible. I keep thinking about my nieces who are 1 and 2 respectively and how easily they could end up in the same situation. Thank god that little boy had his big brother there.
 
W

W-00

Member
Mushroomer25 said:
Ironically, the CPR in the movie is used in a woman who has been undeniably dead for at least ten minutes. But the actions themselves are accurately depicted, which is what really matters.
Click to expand...

Wait, they actually depict how to perform CPR accurately in the movie? I've never seen it performed properly in any medium. I was under the impression that they purposefully avoided it because performing it properly had too high of a chance to injure the actors.

Anyways, well done, kid.
 
S

Skii

Member
nel e nel said:
If you do chest compressions in the wrong spot you can potentially puncture lungs or other organs. If you do CPR incorrectly, you could potentially choke someone with their own tongue or shove a blockage further down the throat.

But all's well that ends well.
Click to expand...

So let them die instead of injuring them? Smart.
 
T

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
Jim Carrey should take notes on how to be a celebrity.
 
L

lightus

Member
There's some oddly aggressive and seemingly misguided posts in this thread.

It's a great article and it's amazing that the boy was able to save his brother.

With that being said, CPR is often portrayed horribly in movies. On top of that, CPR can cause serious damage if done incorrectly or when done inappropriately. In fact, even done correctly you still run the risk of breaking the recipient's ribs.

I'm not say it takes years of training to perform, but it's not a low risk catch all solution some people seem to be implying.
 
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