A mother is searching for a man who saved her daughter from drowning at Avila Beach over the weekend.
The woman says when it all happened, she went into shock and didn’t even have a chance to thank the man for pulling her four-year-old to safety.
Now, she’s hoping to meet him and thank him for being a hero.
Maria Camacho and her family were visiting Avila Beach for Memorial Day. She says everything was good until she looked away for a split second.
“I go and see my husband holding a little girl, he puts her on the floor and starts doing chest compressions,” she explained.
Maria said she initially had no idea who the little girl was. She just knew someone needed her help and as a trained lifeguard, she raced over.
“That’s when I realized, that’s my daughter! I couldn’t tell it was her because she was full of foam and she was purple already,” Maria explained.
She said her husband gave their daughter chest compressions, eventually making the water came out.
“She became conscious and I just grabbed her and didn’t want to let her go anymore,” she added.
Maria said she doesn’t know exactly how it all happened; she just remembers a man telling her how he went into the water and rescued her baby girl.
“He was trying to tell me but I was in shock. I could only hear something about him fishing and he saw a body floating and so he went in to go get her,” Maria explained.
The family rushed the little girl to the emergency room where she spent the night.
Today she is doing well, even enjoyed an ice cream her father promised her while in the hospital.
But the family said they are missing one thing, an opportunity to say thank you to the stranger who saved her life.
“I just owe him. I owe him so much. I want to tell him ‘thank you’ and I want to give him a hug and I want my daughter to see him tell him ‘thank you.’ If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t be here,” Maria said.
The Camacho family is asking anyone who was there or might know the man who saved their daughter to contact them at (831) 512-2081.
We will be following up on this story and hope to bring you the reunion.
