True hero at only 12 years old: he saves a father and his children from drowning

It is thanks to a 12-year-old “little guy”, a “real hero”, that a father and his two children are still alive, after narrowly escaping drowning in the middle of the St. Wednesday afternoon.

“If Theo hadn’t been there, it was over,” says Jean-Pierre Boily, still shaken by the traumatic experience that could have cost him his life, as well as his two children.

“I acted out of emotion […] I was under pressure, I told myself that I wanted to save them and I succeeded, ”says Théo Ferland, who continues to receive praise since his heroic gesture.

“It happened in a second”

A resident of Île d’Orléans since he was very young, Mr. Boily, now 36, is used to going by boat to “the sandbanks” located under the bridge of the island, in the village of Saint-Pierre, when the river is at low tide.

Around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, when the sun was making a rare appearance, Mr. Boily decided to take his children there, Alice, 8, and Émile, 11, as well as the latter’s good friend, Théo.

But their little escapade quickly turns into a nightmare, when Alice loses her footing “in the snap of her fingers”, and is unable to regain shore, due to the current.

His brother then tries to help him by bringing him the life jacket that had remained in their boat, before losing his footing in turn.

Panicked, their father comes to their rescue and tries to bring them back, but in vain. A little closer to the shore, Théo, who no longer touches the bottom either, also tries to swim against the current.

“I left in the current. I had my children in my arms, one on each side. I had to push my daughter a few times to get her to let go of me so that I wouldn’t drown, ”says Mr. Boily, his voice tied with emotion.

Their painful drift lasted about twenty minutes, underlines Mr. Boily. “It felt like I was falling off a building. I thought there was no one to come and help us. I walked away, I swallowed water”, relates the father, remembering “the horror”.

“One more minute and I was dead with my two children,” he adds.

“There Was Someone in Heaven”

During this time, Theo barely manages to get back to the sandbank.

In interview at Newspaperhe says that it was his father, who died of cancer last February, who gave him “the strength and the courage” to continue swimming.

“I was against the tide and I said to myself: no, it’s not today that I’m going to die, that’s not how it ends. It was really there that I had the strength to swim very hard to come back to the shore and run to the boat,” says the young hero.

Then, when he had no idea how the boat worked, the boy managed to start the boat’s engine, which was still anchored. He then maneuvers it to the three castaways, panicked and out of breath.

“I didn’t know at all how it works, I touched all the pitons, I managed to move forward. I stalled, then I did the same thing again and I left and I managed to get them on board, ”he says, humbly.

His mother, too, is bowled over by his “exceptional” rescue. “He told me yesterday [mercredi]: Mom, I don’t understand how I did it. I saw my life go by. [Feu son conjoint] must have said to himself, no it’s not his time, we can’t do that to mom, ”says Theo’s mother, Cindy Langlois, relieved and grateful that her son is still alive.

Relief

Twenty minutes later, help, called by workers on the Island bridge, arrived on the scene to take care of the four survivors, who were all taken to hospital as a preventive measure.

“I was worried about the children, but the worst off was me. I had no more oxygen. When I managed to climb on the boat, I lost consciousness and it was the children who held my hand while waiting for help to arrive,” said Mr. Boily.

An emotional rescue

“It’s as if when I got on the boat, hope returned. I saw them in the distance, I saw that Jean-Pierre was out of breath. I said to myself: I will succeed”, Théo Ferland.

“I tried to stay calm with the children, but I’m not an athlete”, Jean-Pierre Boily.