12-Year-Old Spring Girl Honored With Civilian Life Saving Award

SPRING, TX -- A Spring preteen was honored at a ceremony at Spring Fire Station for saving the life of her 12-year cousin, who nearly drowned in the family's backyard pool on June 3.

On Thursday morning, the Spring Fire Department and Cypress Creek EMS presented 12-year-old Rylee Perry with the Civilian Lifesaving Award at Spring Fire Station 75.

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Perry and her cousin Cali Christopher, 12, are nearly inseparable, and it was that closeness that led Perry to spring into action and save her cousin's life.

"We are both like fish in the water," Perry said.

The cousins have played and swam together all their lives, and their usual game of mermaids in the backyard swimming pool was something they always did when they swam together.

While they were playing, Cali dove under the water.

Rylee thought her cousin was holding her breath, which was always part of the game.

"She never really holds it past 10 seconds," she said.

When she didn't come back up, Rylee put on her goggles and saw her cousin laying at the bottom of the 8-foot pool.

She dove to check on her and noticed her arms were floating, and she was not moving or responding to her.

Rylee swam up to catch her breath, and dove back down to the deep end of the pool to pull Cali up.

She was heavy and limp.

"I knew that wasn't normal," she said.

Rylee pulled Cali above the water, and noticed she was frothing at the mouth.

She turned her head to the side as she continued struggling to bring her out of the pool.

"I was just screaming my mom's name," she recalled.

Mom, who was inside the house, called 911, and rescuers from the Spring Fire Department and Cypress Creek EMS arrived minutes later

Spring Firefighter Blake Thompson was among the first to arrive at the scene with his partner, and at the time it didn't look good.

"She was unresponsive, and very shallow breathing," Thompson recalled.

Luckily, Rylee had turned Cali over on her side, to keep her from choking and to keep her airway clear.

Firefighters and paramedics help stabilize her, and she began to breathe somewhat normally, before being taken to Texas Children's Hospital in The Woodlands.

At the time of the accident, Cali's mom, Bethany Kucera, was standing in line waiting to attend a George Strait concert in Austin, when her phone rang.

Three hours later, she was at her daughter's side at Texas Children's Hospital.

"This is a very tragic and heartbreaking event, but it's a huge blessing in disguise," Kucera said. "This has made all of us have a renewed sense of faithfulness, feeling very blessed, thankful for God and thankful for that intuition that Rylee had. This could have gone so incredibly wrong, I can't even let my brain go there."

Kucera recalled an incident when Rylee was just 2-years-old and nearly choked to death on a hot dog, when Kucera stepped in and administered the Heimlich Maneuver to dislodge the hot dog.

"She never forgot that," Kucera said.

Meanwhile, Rylee said she was excited to receive the award, but more excited that her cousin Cali has fully recovered.

"I just did what I had to do," she said. "It was scary."

Image: Bryan Kirk/Houston Patch Field Editor: Rylee Perry embraces cousin Cali Christopher as Spring Fire Chief Scott Seifert presents Rylee with the Civilian Life Saving Award

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