An elderly man found himself in an emergency at his home. Fortunately, a couple of brave young boys were there to help him out. The new experience has now bridged their generational divide.
88-year-old Harold Shearer, who is paralyzed and gets around in a wheelchair, says he was at his home on Primavera Drive on Wednesday afternoon treating his pool with chlorine when the unexpected happened.
“I guess I got to close to the edge on my chair. I’ve never done this before but I must have just fell forward,” Shearer told KRIS 6 News.
His wife of 66 years, Iva, was there to help keep his head above water. But as Shearer describes, “we’re not spring chickens.” However, Mrs. Shearer was able to do something vital. That was helping her husband keep his head above water.
However, that left Iva Shearer with another predicament. She says, “Because I was helping him stay afloat, I couldn’t leave and come and phone for help.”
So, they screamed for help. Thankfully, their neighbors were in the right place at just the right time. Twelve-year-old Nicholas Morris had just arrived home from school with his 13-year-old cousin Guillermo Batini when the Shearers were crying out for assistance.
“My mom heard them yelling, ‘Help!’ So we came out,” Nicholas recalls. “My cousin and I, we hopped the fence and went over to the pool to go help him and pick him up with school clothes and phones in our pockets and everything.”
One of the boy’s mothers was able to call police for help, and Nicholas and Guillermo helped the Shearers until police and paramedics arrived. Capt. Noe of the Corpus Christi Fire Department says he agrees that the young duo helped saved Harold Shearer’s life.
In Mr. Shearer’s words, “They’re little heroes.”
Harold Shearer estimates he was in the pool for about an hour. He did not suffer any major injuries.
