A former Castaic resident and nurse is searching for an individual she saved almost 20 years ago as an infant after he was found unresponsive at the bottom of a swimming pool.
16 years ago, while Janice Oehl and her friends were watching their young children at the Northlake community hot tub, an infant nearly drowned, prompting Oehl to jump into action.
On the other side of the community center an “illegal” party took place where young children were unsupervised near the pool, Oehl said.
“There were three kids at the pool, none had swimmies on, all of the kids were underage and didn’t know how to swim,” Oehl said.
While she was watching her kids she remembered thinking the whole time, ‘where are these kids’ mother at?’
As time passed, things took a turn.
“My friend said, ‘hey they are pulling something out of the pool,’” Oehl said. “Holy mackerel, it’s a kid. I got up and started doing what I do.”
When Oehl, at the time a critical care nurse, went to render aid she was certain the child had died, she explained.
“I didn’t know how long he was down there,” Oehl said.
After spending almost 20 minutes performing CPR on the child who was around 1 year old, he started to have a pulse, shallow breathing and then finally let out a cry.
Although doing CPR and reviving patients was a regular thing to Oehl being a nurse, hearing this particular infant start to cry stuck out to her.
“I was ecstatic,” Oehl said. “It was special because it was a little baby.”
While she was working on the child, Oehl was asking different people at the pool to call 9-1-1 and to request a helicopter to respond.
However, something that stuck out to Oehl while she was working to revive the child no one at the party claimed responsibility for the child, She said.
“They all just watched, that is what bothered me all these years,” Oehl said.
Oehl often thinks about this now-adult, who she never knew his name or what happened to him.
Oehl hopes to one day meet the individual she helped, she explained in a Facebook post.
Oehl has since retired from being a nurse and retired to Florida.
However, she is asking that anyone who may know who this individual may be, will either reach out to her or have him call her.
Anyone who may know who this person may be, Oehl would like to hear from you.
To contact her call 386-447-7751 or email her at oehljb@aol.com.
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