NH Landscaper Saves 3-Year-Old Boy Who Nearly Drowned In Pool

WINDHAM (CBS) - A New Hampshire landscaper was in the right place at the right time Wednesday morning. He was working at a home on Sharon Road in Windham. "We were building the young boy that lived there a basketball court," he said.

It was about three and a half hours into the day's job when Matt Pulomena heard something next door. "I heard a splash and looked up and I heard the mother just screaming help help help with her son over her shoulder and I just took off and jumped the fence and ran up on their deck and took the kid from the mother," he said.

Three-year-old Connor St. Laurent had somehow gotten into the pool in his grandparents' backyard. "He wasn't breathing and there was no circulation so I just started CPR it was probably around like the 5th or 6th session that I was going through and that's when all the water started coming out of his mouth and nose," he recalled. "One or two good rounds of CPR and he took that gasp for air."

Matt says he thought of his girlfriend's 15-month-old son and hoped if the tables were turned, someone would jump in to try and save him. How did he know what to do? He spent two years in a live-in training program at the Belmont, New Hampshire Fire Department while in school. "If it wasn't for the Belmont Fire Department, I wouldn't have known what to do I would've been another bystander just around just looking at a lifeless kid," he said.

Matt wants to be an EMT and has taken training. But he hasn't yet passed the test. He passed a real life test, though, when it counted on Sharon Road. "I'm glad that someone was there that knew what they were doing because if not it could've been a completely different outcome," he said.

Sadly, Matt said the St. Laurent family had just filled their pool earlier in the day. At last check, Connor was in serious condition at Elliot Hospital in Manchester.