Photo courtesy of Libby Jacobson
Jacobsons pool rescue
Keith and Libby Jacobson, and their children, 12-year-old Sam and 10-year-old Sarah Claire, visit 4-year-old Zachary Kohen at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta — Egleston Hospital after resuscitating the young boy when he was found lifeless in a resort pool in Stone Mountain, Georgia, on Saturday, April 28, 2018.
A Hoover couple helped save the life of a 4-year-old boy who was found unconscious on the bottom of a resort pool in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Saturday afternoon.
Libby Jacobson, a dermatologist who owns Inverness Dermatology and Laser, and her husband, Keith, a retired captain with the Hoover Fire Department who now is his wife’s office manager, were at a conference at Stone Mountain when the incident happened.
The Jacobsons were at the pool at the Atlanta Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort in the middle of the day Saturday when a woman pulled the 4-year-old boy from the bottom of the pool and plopped his body on the pool deck.
“He was like a ragdoll. He was blue. He was not conscious,” Libby Jacobson said.
The woman who pulled him from the pool tried to begin mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but wasn’t quite sure how to do it and was screaming. Libby Jacobson, who is certified in CPR, said she jumped out of the pool and took over. She started chest compressions, and her husband quickly joined her and began rescue breathing on the boy.
They did 30 chest compressions, followed by two breaths, and after the second round of that, pink color came back to the boy’s face and he spit up some water, Libby Jacobson said.
“He just came back to life. He started crying and screaming. It was wonderful,” she said.
Keith Jacobson, as a former firefighter and paramedic, had performed CPR numerous times. But Libby Jacobson, though she is a doctor and learned CPR in medical school, had never had to do it before, she said. She certainly doesn’t use it in her dermatology practice, but she is so glad she knew how to do it Saturday, she said.
So is the boy’s mother. Robyn Kohen said she was at the pool with a friend, and each of them had two children with them. Robyn said she had walked to a nearby deck to try to get her baby to sleep and asked her friend to watch the older kids in the pool.
A short while later, she texted her friend to see how her 4-year-old son, Zachary, was doing. The friend looked around and didn’t see him at first but then spotted him lifeless at the bottom of the pool and jumped in immediately to grab him, Kohen said.
'Angels placed there to save my firstborn's life'
Kohen said she is thankful for the quick actions of her friend and especially thankful for the Jacobsons.
“They were the angels placed there to save my firstborn’s life,” Kohen said. “I’m just beyond thankful and blessed.”
She was amazed at how calm and in control Libby Jacobson was as she performed CPR, she said. And Keith Jacobson and the Jacobsons’ two children, ages 10 and 12, stayed by her side and kept her calm until paramedics arrived, she said.
The paramedics took Zachary to the hospital for further observation and treatment, and the Jacobsons came to visit him around 7 p.m.
“He was doing good already. He was playing with his cars, not on oxygen,” Libby Jacobson said. “It was really reassuring to see him having fun and happy.”
Zachary stayed at the hospital overnight due to some fluid in his lungs but was released Sunday to go back home to Sandy Springs, a suburb of Atlanta, his mother said.
“He is 100 percent — running around, playing, laughing, eating, drinking,” she said. “He is back to himself.”
Kohen said she can’t thank the Jacobsons enough for what they did. She’s going to get certified in CPR and spread the word to others, encouraging them to do the same, she said. “You could be that person at the pool that changes a family forever.”
Libby Jacobson said it’s important for people to realize that in instances of drowning or choking, there’s not much time to react.
“Just knowing CPR is crucial in those kinds of situations,” she said. “You don’t have to be a doctor or fireman to learn to do it. It’s very, very easy to learn. It takes about a day to know how to do it.”
The Hoover Fire Department offers CPR classes the first, second and third Saturdays of each month at Hoover Fire Station No. 7 in Inverness. For more information, visit the Hoover Fire Department website or contact the CPR coordinator at woodsb@ci.hoover.al.us.
