Walnut man pulls woman from bottom of hotel swimming pool in Whittier

WHITTIER >> A Walnut man said a series of coincidences led to him being in the right place at the right time to pull an unconscious woman from the bottom of a hotel swimming pool in Whittier late Thursday.
Mike Vargas, 33, sprung into action to help a young woman who found lifeless just before 9:40 p.m. at the bottom of the pool at the Radisson Hotel Whittier, 7320 Greenleaf Ave., according to officials and a witness.
The woman was “conscious and breathing” when paramedics arrived on scene, Los Angeles County Fire Department Dispatch Supervisor Cheryl Sims said. She was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Vargas said a series of unexpected events led him to briefly stop by the Radisson late Thursday.
“I completely believe that it was divine intervention,” he said.
Vargas, a musician who raps under the stage name “Mikue,” had just left a Pico Rivera music studio and was heading to Uptown Whittier to meet a friend when the friend cancelled the meeting.
Vargas said he was thinking about stopping to see a movie when he pulled into the Radisson to use the restroom and get something to drink.
As Vargas was about to leave the hotel, he said he suddenly felt an urge to sit down on a bench and call his brother. “It was like a hit a brick wall,” he said. He had been sitting for about a minute when two women entered the lobby.
The women did not speak English, but frantically motioned for the clerk to follow them to the pool area, Vargas said. “I figured maybe there was a child who slipped and fell.”
But when Vargas and a hotel manager reached the pool, they saw the woman who appeared to be in her late-teens or early-20s lying curled up and motionless at the bottom of the deep end.
“It looked like she was just resting there,” he said. “There were no bubbles. No struggle. She was just lifeless down there.”
“I came back to my senses and realized what was going on, and I just jumped in,” Vargas said.
Vargas said the woman showed no signs of life once Vargas pulled her back onto the ground. After another bystander tried unsuccessfully to perform CPR, Vargas said he began administering chest compressions.
After four or five pumps, he said, the woman began to cough up water. “Within a minute, the police and fire departments showed up.”
An update on the woman’s condition was not available, nor were any officials details regarding how she ended up at the bottom of the pool.
But Vargas said he believed he knew how it was that he came to cross paths with the woman.
“I believe God intervened. That’s what my belief is.”

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