The little girl who nearly drowned in a backyard pool yesterday has made a full recovery and was reunited this afternoon with the man who saved her life.
Two-and-a-half-year-old Brooklyn fell into the pool in Surrey, B.C., Wednesday around 6 p.m., while her mother was answering the door at a house in the 15000-block of Devonshire Drive.
Mother Leslie Hnatiw pulled the unconscious youngster from the water after finding her floating unresponsive and face-down.
Mario Knezevic, who was visiting a neighbour, ran outside when he heard the woman's screams.
He grabbed the little girl and immediately began administering CPR on the pool deck -- Hnatiw doesn't have CPR training.
Another neighbour, a doctor, took over compressions until an air ambulance arrived and transported the girl to BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver.
Little Brooklyn was released from the hospital Thursday afternoon, carried out in the arms of the man who saved her life.
"This is all I need to feel, holding her now," Knezevic told CTV News. "I was worried if she was okay or not. I was worried. She was in really bad condition."
He said he wasn't certain at first that he could save Brooklyn.
"When she handed her to me, I didn't think I could help," he said. "She started to yell at me – panicking – ‘Do something.'"
But he said that after six or seven compressions, he saw the colour come back into Brooklyn's lips.
"When she coughed, I knew I got her back -- my baby," Knezevic said.
Hnatiw said that Brooklyn seems to have come through the ordeal completely unscathed.
"She has made a full recovery, and she couldn't be doing any better, as far as we know," she told CTV News.
"She actually was having a bit of a hissy fit earlier, throwing her bottle, so she's back to her old self."
Hnatiw said she had a message for parents about pool safety: "Make sure every child has their lifejacket on, and don't let them out of your sight."
Brooklyn's grandmother has promised to pay for swimming lessons.
Watch CTV News at Six for a report from Jina You
