Off-duty officer saves drowning boy at family party

ORLAND PARK, Ill. (WLS) -- In true hero fashion, Sergeant Cindy Guerra is about as humble as they come, but without her lifesaving skills a young boy could very well have died.

"He was laying there in front of me, I just wanted to get him back," Guerra says.

Guerra was off duty Saturday night at a family graduation party at a home near Summercrest Avenue and Steeplechase parkway in Orland Park when a young boy, about 12-years-old, went down a slide into the deep end of the home's pool. He sank to the bottom, about 11 feet down, and never made it back up.

Guerra literally jumped into action.

"I instinctively jumped out of my seat, I had my shoes, all my clothes, I saw him at the bottom and I jumped in, grabbed him, brought him up," she says.

Using her former lifeguard training she pulled the boy out and started CPR until she felt a heartbeat. When Orland Park EMTs arrived, they all realized she had just saved the boy's life.

"He was alive when we got there, but he was not before we got there," says Orland Park Battalion Chief Daniel Smith. "There is no doubt, no, she was a hero, she acted."

Guerra says she doesn't feel like a hero, she just feels happy.

"I'm just happy I was there. It was the right place at the right time. And I was happy I was able to help this boy," she says.

The boy was taken to Silver Cross Hospital in New Lennox to recover and is expected to be okay.