Firefighter Jason Horne figured he was in for a quiet Fourth of July boat ride with his 12-year-old daughter. Instead, he ended up pulling three young children from under an overturned boat on a north Texas lake. Hearing screams on Alvarado Park Lake, the 50-year-old off-duty firefighter and medic dove in after hearing, "My babies are under there!" His daughter Emilie stayed aboard their own vessel and called 911 as Horne swam to the capsized 16-foot fishing boat.
He brought up a coughing boy first, then a girl who wasn't breathing and revived her with CPR on the hull of the capsized boat. A third child, found tangled in rope and without a pulse, began breathing again after more CPR, as a pontoon that had been nearby sped toward shore with the victims on board, where emergency crews met them. "I just kept saying, you can breathe, baby, you can do it, you can do it, I got you," Horne says, per CBS News. All three children, ages 3 and 5, have since recovered and are doing OK, per the Post.
WFAA reports that Horne and his daughter were reunited with first responders and the family of the children they helped save, according to a post by the local fire department. Alvarado's fire chief said the kids survived only because Horne happened to be there, per the Post. Horne credits parental instinct more than training and points to one key factor: Every child in the water had been wearing a life jacket. "I don't feel like a hero," he says. "If you see somebody who needs help, you go help them."
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