Info on Silva being saved from drowning

My father posted this to the Big Soccer forums. It has more info on Silva almost drowning.

My daughter talked to her co-worker today to get the whole story and he's a true-life hero. Here's the story. I'm going to call him "Sam".

Sam and his brother-in-law were out paddle boarding and saw Matheus and his friend swim out to the buoy's about 60 yards off shore. They were swimming back, with the his friend in the lead when Matheus started to flounder. The friend in front didn't notice and at first Sam thought he might have been joking. Then he went under and didn't come up. So Sam and his brother immediately paddled over and saw him lying on the bottom of the lake about 10 feet down. The friend by then had turned around and tried to dive but was too spent. So Sam dove down, got under him and pushed off the bottom with Matheus's 200 lb body weight over his head upwards to where the friend and brother in law were just able to grab him and pull him onto a paddle board. They immediately paddled as fast a possible to shore where there just happened to be an EMT waiting who started CPR until the paramedics arrived 5 minutes later. Matheus didn't have a heart beat until the paramedics were able to get a weak pulse rate going, for an estimated 9 minutes and probably went about 3 minutes without breathing air.

It really was a miraculous life save. So many circumstances fell the right way. If Sam and brother-in-law weren't there, it would have added many minutes to any rescue attempt. If they didn't have the buoyant paddle boards, they'd have really struggled to get him to shore. If Matheus had floundered sooner, and had gone under farther out in deeper water, they never would have been able to dive down and get a man his size and weight back up. If it hadn't been a clear water lake, they never would have seen him at the bottom and probably would still be dredging for his body. If the EMT wasn't there, then further delay, etc...

Amazing story.

And "Sam" and brother-in-law are going to take the ceremonial first goal at the July 29 Rapids game. A huge ovation is in order.