"Girl is rescued from pool at Y"

[VaultnGus]

Caught this article while trying to find out Mr. Malinosky's first name for the database...

http://www.therecordherald.com/articles ... news04.txt

By LYNNE NEWMAN Staff writer


WAYNESBORO - An 18-year-old lifeguard is credited with saving the life of a 9-year-old Waynesboro girl who nearly drowned in the Waynesboro Area YMCA swimming pool during a birthday party Friday evening.



After being rescued, the girl was treated and released from Waynesboro Hospital, according to Richard Marks, executive director of the YMCA. She was one of 16 children attending the birthday party at the pool.



The girl, whose name is not being released by YMCA officials, was pulled from the 5-foot end of the smaller pool by David Malinosky of Zullinger, the lifeguard on duty.



"I don't usually take a picture in my mind of the kids who enter the pool," said the son of Frederick and Nancy Malinosky, "but I remember her coming in with some other little girls."



Malinosky, who has been a lifeguard at the YMCA for the past 15 months, said he was standing on the deck when he saw the girl jump into the pool at 6:15 p.m.



When he scanned back about three seconds later, he noticed she was lying on the bottom of the pool.



"Nothing looked wrong, but it just didn't feel right, so I walked down to that end," he said.



He jumped in when he realized she was face down and not moving.



"She was lifeless, her face was pale and her lips were blue," he said.



The girl was unconscious and not breathing when he put her on the deck of the pool.



"That was the scariest thing I have ever seen in my life," Malinosky said. "She had a weak pulse, but her airway was obstructed."



She began to sputter for air after he tilted her head and lifted her chin. By the time paramedics arrived, the girl was breathing again.



"So many things go through your mind when this happens," Malinosky said. "You don't know if you are going to forget what you have learned. But while your head is wondering, your hands continue doing what they've been taught."



"David did a fantastic job," said Alan Smith, assistant director of the YMCA. "The girl's father told me without the lifeguard doing the right thing, he didn't know how it would have turned out."



Smith said the girl apparently swallowed some water when she jumped into the pool and swallowed more when she was in the pool.



Malinosky is not only a graduate of the lifeguard program at the YMCA, he is an instructor in the course.



He was helping Neil Yost, aquatics director, teach a class when he took an hour off to work at the pool party.



"I'll bet that class of lifeguards is the best we turn out," Marks said. "They saw how what they are learning really does save lives."



Malinosky's mother is a nurse and he told her that while she has saved lives before, he had not.



"I said to her, 'Mom, I saved someone's life. That little girl could have drowned if I had done the wrong thing.'"



A senior at Waynesboro Area Senior High School, Malinosky was captain of the school football team and on the track team, where he went to districts in pole vault.



He plans to study business administration at Millersville University and play on the college football team.[/url]