An 8-year-old boy and his neighbors are being credited with helping to save a 10-year-old Rohnert Park boy from strangling from a makeshift tree swing.
A Rohnert Park police spokesman says the two boys were playing with a bed sheet tied to a tree Sunday evening at the townhouse complex where they both live when the older boy became entangled in the sheet and began choking.
Sgt. Jeff Nicks says the younger boy ran to get help from neighbors, who found the 10-year-old unconscious.
A resident at the complex got home just as rescuers were untangling the boy from the sheet.
"His lips were as blue as can get," Jeremiah Ghilotti said.
Ghilotti called for his girlfriend, a radiology technician, who began performing CPR on the boy. After a few tense moments, the boy began breathing on his own.
Emergency crews took the boy to a Santa Rosa hospital. He was later taken by helicopter to Oakland Children's Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.
Local
Police are calling the boy a possible hanging victim but have not yet determined whether the incident was intentional or not, Nicks said.
“I don’t think we’re going to find that out until we talk to the 10-year-old,” Nicks told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
Nicks commended the boy's playmate for his quick-thinking heroic act.
"I think that little 8-year-old boy was the very beginning of the lifesaving efforts,” the sergeant said.
Police have not released the names of the two boys.
