WYANDOTTE (WXYZ) — "His eyes just looked cold. He was lifeless. His lips were blue," Shelby Roberts said about seeing her little boy after she pulled him out of the small river behind their home in Wyandotte.
"I thought I lost my kid. That was really hard," she said about two-year-old Eli.
It happened one afternoon just over a week ago as Shelby was on the phone making doctor appointments for Eli who has autism.
And when Shelby went to check on Eli who had been in another room, she found the back door was open. The little boy who couldn't unlock a door before had done it. And the deadbolt that was out of his reach was not engaged.
Eli was gone. Shelby rushed to look for him and found him submerged in the small river behind their home.
"I go outside and I start looking for him and all of a sudden, I go back towards the water, and he's floating face down in the water," Shelby told 7 Action News.
Shelby threw her phone and rushed into the water. "It was like a mother instinct. As soon I seen him in the water, I dived right in."
She was able to pull Eli out and call 911.
Dispatch supervisor Beth Kusiak was on the line to try to keep Shelby calm so she could begin CPR.
"My son drowned. He's not breathing," Shelby said on the 911 call.
Thankfully, Shelby knew CPR but a mother's panic was also setting in.
While helping Shelby through the emergency, Kusiak had dispatched Wyandotte Police Officers Heather Carpeaux and Michael Sadowski.
Carpeaux and Sadowski rushed, lights and sirens, to the house and rushed into the backyard. Together with mom, they performed CPR.
On their body cam footage, you can see Eli's chest raise as the toddler takes in a breath of air.
EMS arrived to take over treating Eli and rush him to the hospital where he remained for two days.
Shelby said thankfully her son did not have to go on a ventilator, but he was given oxygen and doctors said he made a full recovery.
On Monday, Shelby and her son met the people who helped her save her son that day.
"Oh, it's amazing.. it's amazing. A little emotional," said Kusiak.
"'It's awesome seeing him running around," said Officer Carpeaux.
Officer Sadowski said, "It's fantastic. I'm glad he made a full recovery. It was a great team effort. Very happy."
The family has now installed a fence to keep the kids from getting to the water.
Shelby urging parents to be extra cautious and know CPR.
"I'll never be able to leave him around the water at all by himself for a long time. It's been a struggle to even to give them baths," she said. "It's hard right now."
