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A heroic Kansas man sprang into action to resuscitate a drowning autistic boy in an emotional rescue that was caught on camera earlier this month.
Xavier Rigney, 4, who is non-verbal, had bolted out of his mother’s Lawrence apartment and figured out how to gain entry to the complex’s locked pool on May 18, according to The Topeka Capital-Journal.
The boy, clad in a diaper, took one step into the deep end and was immediately completely submerged, security video showed.
He began trying to reach for something to climb onto in vain and quickly became unresponsive.
Neighbor Maddox Westerhaus, 12, saw Xavier underwater and told his father Tom, who jumped the locked fence and pulled the boy from the water.
He had been submerged for 200 seconds — nearly three and a half minutes, according to the article.