8-Year-Old Boy Helps Save His Baby Sister From Drowning

PLACERVILLE, CA — A second-grader's actions may have helped save the life of his baby sister, who nearly drowned in the family's pool on a cold January day in Placerville, California. Tino Conboy's calmness and quick thinking have been recognized by local and national news outlets as his sister, Cami, is doing well some two months after the scare.

Tino, an 8-year-old student at Sutter's Mill School in Placerville, was looking for young Cami that January morning for a few moments before finding the 18-month-old floating in the backyard pool.

“I looked in the pool and I saw her drowning,” Tino told the Mountain Democrat newspaper. “Her hand was moving kind of slowly, and she was trying to swim. The water was really cold.”

Cami's body started turning blue, Tino said. The 8-year-old screamed to help save his baby sister. It was a scream loud enough to immediately alert the siblings' mother, Diana.

"It was the worst nightmare ever," Tino told the newspaper.

Tino called 911 as his mother gave Cami CPR. The young girl was taken to the hospital and had fluid in her lungs, but after a few hours X-rays came back clear, and she was back home that same day, the Mountain Democrat reported.

Diana was so shaken up that 8-year-old Tino had to step in to help answer questions.

“I was trying to talk, but my voice wasn’t coming out,” Diana told the newspaper. “They were asking a lot of questions, and I just couldn’t get the words out. Then Tino saw that I was struggling with that, and he jumped in and answered the questions.”

Tino's scream that got his mother's attention is one he learned from Cami, the boy told CBS-13.

“Basically, Cami gave her power to me and then that’s how I had the power to scream, and then Mom came over and jumped in and got Cami out,” Tino told the television station, whose story was also picked up nationally by "People."

The family sees the frightening incident as a second chance.

“It was definitely the beginning of the worse day of my life," Diana said, "but ended with the best day of our lives.”