Sharing Our Stories

Daniel Bostek
Trainmaster
King of Prussia, Pa.

A two-year-old lesson saved the life of a two-year-old. It was about 1980, and my father 1st Class Petty Officer Philip Bostek had been transferred to Carrier Air Wing (CAG) 20 at NAS Cecil field near Jacksonville, Fla. One of our neighbors across the street was babysitting a boy my age, Jason who was nine and his little brother Josh who was two. Even though this was Florida , the fall weather had clouded the pool and you could see the silhouette of leaves that had collected on the bottom. Jason and I were taking turns pulling a toy boat around the edges of the pool with a string, and Josh [we thought] was inside playing with the babysitter’s son who was also about two years old.

Another neighbor had come to call on the babysitter, and they stood talking near the front door of the house. Two-year-old Josh used this opportunity to exit the back door into the back yard where his brother and I were playing. The babysitter came out a few minutes later looking for Josh. We said we thought he had gone back inside. He had not. "There he is in the bottom of the pool...there in the deep end," I shouted. The neighbor dove in, but the water was too cold, and suction created by the drain was holding the baby down to the bottom.

I ran to the gate of the six-foot privacy fence, but the gate was broken and I could not open it. I ran through the house across the street to my house where my dad, dressed in his dress whites, was getting out of the car having just returned home from work. "Josh is in the bottom of the pool and they can’t get him out!" I shouted. Dad headed at lightning speed across the street, I yelled has he ran, "Dad the gate is broken ... you will have to go through the house." This hero did not need the gate! He hurdled the fence as if it were not even there. I came through the house with my mother right on my heels, just in time to see through the back door as my Dad dove uniform and all into the frigid murky water. Only seconds later as I came through the glass door on the back of the house, my Dad emerged from the water extending his larger than life hand which held the lifeless body of two-year-old Joshua. My dad had the huge hands of a hardworking man. His hands were larger than life, tools for correction, and firm to the back for a job well done. From that day forward I was, and I remain, amazed by the profound and almost God-like vision of my Dad's hands handing Josh's body off to my mother.

My mother who was a trained CNA was checking for a pulse, when dad sprang from the water like a buoy and immediately began CPR.

The whine of the ambulance sirens was behind the house. That's not good I thought. They need to be around front to get into the house.... I stood on the fence and yelled . "Wrong house ... Were over here!" The EMTs came around the block to the correct house, and as they emerged from the back door, Joshua was beginning to make gurgling sounds, and the water was being forced from his lungs which were now filled with his hero's breath. The purple color that disguised his face from the nose up like a Victorian masquerade mask was beginning to fade. As the EMTs placed Joshua in the ambulance, the driver asked my mother any idea how long he was under? "Five to seven minutes we think" mom said. "This is going to be close," the driver said hurriedly as he closed the door and sped away.

CPR was something every Navy man was exposed to at one time or another, but the classes on base or aboard the ship typically dealt with performing the procedure on other adults not on fragile two-year-old children. While stationed in California aboard the USS Enterprise , just about the time Josh was born, dad attended a CPR course. Although he didn't know it then, a child born that same year would be blessed with a long an healthy life because of his attendance.

Retired from the Navy after near 30 years spanning two conflicts ( Vietnam and Desert Storm) Dad has a wall humbly tucked away in the basement that holds every certificate, award and medal he ever received in his career. Dad has received much recognition in his lifetime of honorable service to this country in the U.S. Air force and the U.S. Navy. Among his letters from presidents, fighter wing service plaques and awards, held in a modest frame, is a faded and yellowed article from the NAVY times entitled "Two-year-old lesson saves two-year-old life."

Later, doctors would call Josh a miracle child because he had no long-term effects from his brush with death. Josh would call my dad his hero, and I would call my hero Dad!