Officer who tried to save Lac Leamy drowning victim says CPR training important
An Ottawa police officer who tried to save a young man who drowned last week says it's important for everyone who witnesses emergencies to try to help, after he watched some people stand by and do nothing.
Det.-Const. Hussein Assaad was off duty at Lac Leamy in Gatineau, Que., with family and friends on Thursday night when they heard people screaming for help.
They ran to the scene closer to shore, where a 24-year-old man was lying on the ground unconscious after being pulled out of the lake.
Assaad said the young man had been in the water for about 10 to 15 minutes before anyone found him and that a bystander was giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on shore.
The officer remembered his training and told the bystander to stop doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.
"Instead of doing [mouth-to-mouth] on him [I gave him] compressions, and every compression that I would do, water would gush out of his mouth," Assaad said.
'They didn't even move, they just watched'
Meanwhile, there were other people nearby who did nothing to help, he said.
"It was a little disappointing seeing that when everybody was rushing to help, there was still [people] sitting on the rocks, watching. They didn't even move, they just watched. I remember seeing three couples not even moving, just sitting there and not helping," Assaad said.
"When something like this happens, [we] as a society have to put our hands together and go help. ... Whatever it is that you do, go help, because you could make a difference. People need to take the CPR courses and stuff like that because it gives someone a fighting chance to survive."
Assaad stopped compressions when on-duty police officers and paramedics arrived and took over.
The man was then taken to hospital, where he died the following day.
"I wish he had made it," Assaad said. "I'm a father, so I felt horrible for his mom and his father. I was hoping ... everything would have turned out differently."
