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Boy saves brother from drowning after learning how in The Rock's San Andreas

Posted at 9:30 PM, Aug 23, 2017
and last updated 2017-08-24 15:04:14-04

A 10-year-old metro Detroit boy is being hailed as a hero after saving his 2-year-old brother from drowning.

Jacob O'Connor says he found his younger brother face down in a pool.  But, it was a movie starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson that O'Connor says helped him save his brothers life.

San Andreas stars Johnson as a rescue chopper pilot based in California. In the movie he's responsible for saving lives after a massive earthquake - including the life of his on screen daughter.

July 25 at noontime, the day was a movie.  10-year-old Jacob O'Connor, who lives in Roseville, was sitting on his grandmother's couch.

“I was turning on a show then a minute later the doors were open," he says.

It was then Jacob went to see what was going on. Dylan, just two-years-old, opened the screen door and fell in the pool.

“I pulled him out and started giving him compressions,” Jacob says.

The boys’ grandmother was in the other room, getting ready to put Dylan down for a nap.  Jacob came inside tell his grandmother what happened.

“He was more, ‘Nana, um Dylan opened the door and got in the back yard,” Ellen Vial says.

Vial says Jacob was so calm, but it was when she looked at Dylan she knew something was wrong.

“I looked in his eyes and his eyes were up in his head and not focused and that's what really scared me," she says.

Dylan was rushed to the Hospital.

"The first few hours at the hospital were the worst because they weren't sure if he was going to fully recover,” says Dylan’s mom, Christa. “They couldn't tell me he's going to be okay."

Christa was at work when she got the news.

Dylan had been face down in the water for almost a minute.

Christa’s eldest son Jacob says he knew what to do after watching the movie San Andreas - The Rock doing compressions also to save a life.

“There was an earthquake, then it caused a tsunami and then there was a daughter that was drowning and he had to get her out and he did the same thing,” is how Jacob describes what happened.

From a big screen superhero, to a local hero, it's a life saving story that will forever keep these brothers together.

Dylan was only in the hospital for a day, and the very next day went back to his grandmother’s house and tried getting back in that pool. She has now installed double locks on her screen doors, so if she is going to be out of the room for minute she can lock them.