9-year-old nearly drowns in Mansfield pool - KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana News Weather & Sports

KSLA News 12 spoke with the survivor of a near drowning that happened during a church party Wednesday night  in Desoto Parish.

Nine-year old Xavier Marshall was discharged from Willis Knighton South in Shreveport, less than 24-hours after he'd suffered a near drowning at a private pool in Mansfield during a church pizza and pool party.

Chaperone Marsha Adkison, a member of First Baptist Church in Mansfield described, "He started breathing underwater and that's when all the water came in and then he could not get back up."

Xavier had jumped off the diving board after seeing some of the 35 or so other kids with the church group do the very same thing.  But Xavier didn't know how to swim.

Xavier's mom, Rosemarie Marshall, recalled part of her conversation with her son after he woke up in the hospital.  "He said, 'I saw everybody else doing it and it looked like such fun, mom.  It looked like it was really fun.'  And I said, 'Well, when you went to the bottom and you couldn't get back up, was you having fun?'  He said, 'Uh uh.'  I said, 'Well, what did that teach you?'  He said, 'Not to do it again.'"

A fellow swimmer spotted that Xavier was in trouble and helped pull him from the bottom of the pool ten feet down and chaperone Marisa Sparks pulled him out of the water, where another adult began CPR.  Sparks and Adkison recalled together:

ADKISON:  "When she (Marisa) called 911 she said, 'You get somebody out here, now!'"
SPARKS:  "I did."
ADKISON:  "Send everybody!"
SPARKS:  "I did! I said, 'We need 'em now.  There's no time to think, we need 'em.'"

Within mere minutes an army of rescue personnel had descended on this normally tranquil setting where two-plus minutes of CPR had begun to pay off.  Xavier's mom, Rosemarie Marshall, added, "Even though he was not breathing and responding they gave him CPR and he came back.  You know, God gave him back to me, so I'm very grateful."

Some people in Mansfield say that although this story has a happy ending, that it's a signal of a far bigger problem that some disadvantaged kids simply don't know how to swim.

The Calhoun family, which owns the pool, wants to turn this into a positive.  Marcia Calhoun told us, "I would like to start a program much like Shreveport is doing in teaching children to swim."  But on this checkout day, Xavier only wanted to get one message across:  "Thank you for praying for me."

Xavier's mom said there will be no swimming lessons in her son's future; none.  She simply wants him to stay away from the water, period.

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