Last Friday was a normal "mommy-daughter" day for Tracy Anderwald and her 5-year-old daughter, Allison. The two were playing Marco Polo in a backyard pool in Portland, Texas, but the next thing Anderwald knew, she was waking up in a nearby hospital without a clue as to how she got there, reports the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Home surveillance footage on YouTube and the shy voice of little Allison tell the story of a close call—Anderwald had suffered a seizure in four feet of water and, after a few minutes lying motionless on the bottom of the pool, Allison knew it had been too long and dragged her mother to the shallow end, where she rolled her body over.
Anderwald's sister, Tedra Hunt, was walking to the house as Allison pulled her mother to the shallow end, and footage shows the girl running for help as soon as her mother's face was out of the water. "The doctors explained to us that had Tracy been underwater any longer, she probably wouldn't be with us right now," Hunt, 32, tells ABC News. "It is truly amazing that this little girl, who’s actually also pretty small for her age, was able to save my sister." Hunt says their father, who died two years ago, was a "guardian angel;" Anderwald, 34, will undergo neurological tests to figure out what caused the seizure, which she'd never had before. The sisters are sharing their story in the hopes of demonstrating the importance of teaching children to swim. Allison, their "little mermaid" and "little hero," has been swimming since she was a toddler. (This skilled Dartmouth swimmer drowned.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
