A Mississippi College public safety officer saved a child’s life while on vacation in Florida.
Two weeks ago, Mary Lou Dill and her husband, Lieutenant Christopher Dill with the Clinton Police Department, were on a last minute vacation with friends in Orlando, Florida.
Dill, who had been visiting her sick father in Canada, booked the trip weeks ago but forgot to cancel; an oversight Dill now says was guided by fate.
Dill, her husband and her friends were walking around their hotel grounds at West Gate Resort when they heard music coming from one of the resort’s 14 pool areas. The women decided to go back to their hotel rooms and change into their bathing suits. Once she changed, Dill left her hotel room by herself and began walking back down to the pool area where her husband was waiting.
On her way, a hotel employee on a golf cart stopped and asked if she wanted a ride. A move, once again, where Dill believes fate intervened.
As soon as she got off the golf cart and walked into the pool area, Dill saw chaos. Hearing screams, Dill initially thought a fight had broken out but then she saw a woman running, carrying a lifeless body of a little boy.
Once he was laid on the ground, Dill could see foam coming from the child’s mouth.
“He was blue, it was just awful,” Dill told The Clarion-Ledger Thursday.
Dill asked that the child, a six-year-old triplet, not be identified.
Dill, a mother of three, said her instincts took over and she sprung into action. To this day, she said the moments between when she first saw the child and when she began doing chest compressions are a blur. Dill checked and the child did not have a pulse. She began administering CPR.
“From that point, I can’t remember what I did,” she said. “I just dropped everything and I started doing compressions.”