Screams were echoing from the woods, but the three lifeguards who had just started their shift didn’t hesitate for a second.

They dropped everything and ran toward the cries for help, weaving through trees until they reached a rushing river, swollen and dangerous after recent storms.

Eighteen-year-old lifeguard Kaden Ross reached the water first. In the churning depths, a woman was fighting for her life, barely able to keep her head above the surface.

“I see a woman actively drowning,” Kaden later recalled. “I pulled her to a log, and then she gasped, ‘My boy’s under there.’”

Scanning the murky water, Kaden couldn’t see anyone—until another man rushed in to help. While Kaden handed the exhausted mother to one of his fellow lifeguards, the man spotted something chilling: the small feet of a child, barely visible beneath the water.

Kaden and the man pulled the boy out, but he was limp and not breathing. Without a moment’s pause, Kaden gave two rescue breaths and began CPR. Water poured from the boy’s mouth — a sign of hope in a drowning rescue.

Meanwhile, the other two lifeguards comforted and reassured the terrified mother, keeping her calm.

Emergency responders arrived soon after, but the lifeguards had already done the critical work that made survival possible. Their training, quick thinking, and courage had turned what could have been a tragedy into a miracle.

“That river goes on forever through those woods,” Kaden said later. “It just happened to be in a spot where trained lifeguards could hear the screams. I know we were put there at the right place, at the right time.”

That day, three young lifeguards proved that heroism isn’t about age — it’s about heart, instinct, and the willingness to run toward danger when others freeze. Both the mother and her son are now expected to make a full recovery.