Ten-year-old twin boys, along with their friend, saved their father from nearly drowning in their pool this week by dragging him out of the water and performing CPR, using techniques they had seen in one of their favorite movies.
Brad Hassig was performing routine breathing exercises in his backyard pool in Alabama when he blacked out. "It seemed normal, and then just nothing," he said Wednesday on NBC's "TODAY."
"I noticed that he wasn't OK, because he was laying on his side and his face was starting to turn blue," said his son Christian.
Hassig's other son, Bridon, with their neighbor Sam Ebert, jumped into action. "Me and Sam dove into the water and grabbed one arm and pulled him next to the steps," Bridon said.
"With the water, it makes it lighter, and luckily we are strong swimmers," he added. His dad weighs about 185 pounds.
The boys realized their dad's phone was locked, that they didn't have phones of their own and that their mom wasn't home. Christian sprinted to a neighbor's house, but when it became clear they weren't home, he flagged down a car and asked those inside to call 911.
Meanwhile, Bridon and Sam realized they would need to perform CPR, but neither was trained.
Bridon had to rely on CPR steps he learned from a scene in "The Sandlot."
Luckily the young boy is very familiar with the CPR scene, in which one of the preteen characters tricks a female lifeguard into kissing him as she gives him mouth-to-mouth.
It worked. Hassig started spitting up water as medics arrived.
"I heard, 'Daddy, Daddy come back,'" Hassig said. "Everyone was everywhere. There were first responders. ... It was crazy.
"I went from just complete peace, saying the Lord’s Prayer, and then everything was just white," Hassig recalled. "And as I kind of moved, I was moving over to my side, and I went from peace to being slammed on the deck of the pool. And then just chaos."
Hassig was taken to the hospital and recovered. Bridon is relieved his dad is OK. "I’ve had some moments with him. Happy, sad and some mad moments. But I’m like I don’t want this to be the last moment," the boy said.
Hassig is convinced the boys had supernatural assistance.
"There’s no way physically they should have been able to pull a 185-pound man out of the water like that," he said. "And to know and do what all of them did perfectly, as quickly, no lack of action, to run as fast as they did, it’s God's hand was all over it."
