Amy Berryman and her children planned to spend a fun July afternoon at a birthday pool party.
Instead, the Lilburn woman is being hailed as a hero after she saved the life of a drowning 3-year-old.
The Northside Hospital director of clinical care dove into the pool at a Gwinnett County subdivision after she heard a girl tell her family “there’s a baby at the bottom of the pool.” The alarm on the girl’s face sent Berryman running toward the water.
“It was automatic. Mom and nurse kicked in,” said Berryman, a mother of two. “I don’t remember anything else. Clearly there was no time to yell. I saw him and he was already on the bottom of the pool. I knew I had to act quickly.”
Although she didn’t know it at the time, the child was the grandson of one of Berryman’s co-workers at the hospital.
No one knows how Bryson Rogers ended up in the deepest end of the pool that day.
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Did someone accidentally bump him, causing him to fall?
Perhaps he slipped. Or maybe Bryson leaned in and toppled into the pool. He was always at his grandparents’ side, so no one knows how he slipped away. It could only have been for a few seconds.
Indeed, warm weather, pools and children are not always a great combination
About one in five people who die from drowning are children 14 and younger, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For every child who dies from drowning, an additional five receive emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries.
All anyone knows for sure is that when Berryman lifted Bryson to the surface, his face and neck were blue. He didn’t have a pulse. She screamed for help as his relatives rushed to his side.
Karen Rogers heard the commotion and her heart dropped as she recognized her grandson’s gray and red trunks and Berryman leaning over him doing CPR
Others began to pray. When the ambulance arrived, Rogers of Snellville jumped in and rode with her grandson to Eastside Medical Center. He was later airlifted to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
He was in the hospital for a week but has made a full recovery.
“It just seems unreal,” said Rogers, who works in Northside’s finance department. “When I close my eyes at night, it’s an image I still see.”
The two families knew each other from the children’s baseball teams.
Bryson had been excited about the party for his cousin. “He was jumping up and down,” said his dad, Zachary Rogers, who lives in Lilburn. Rogers was at home getting the kids’ baseball gear ready when he got the alarming call that Bryson had fallen in the pool and had been underwater about three minutes.
“You go from watching your son be all excited about going to a pool party to meeting him at Eastside Hospital as they are getting ready to airlift him to CHOA,” he said.
“There’s no way we can ever repay Amy because she basically saved his life,” the father said. “She’s my son’s guardian angel.”
Not too long ago, Bryson and his family went back to the pool for another party. Zachary Rogers said Bryson was nervous and remembers the spot he fell in but not any other details.
His day care teachers said he has talked about it with some of his friends, warning them to always wear life vests.
For her part, Berryman hopes the young girl who first raised the alarm can be recognized as well.
“I’ve told my children that if you see something wrong, say something.”
That action saved a child’s life.
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