Las Barcas, Playamar

Alfredo Bloy-Dawson: "I learned to swim in the Playamar swimming pool in around 1975-6 (aged 4 or 5). Around this time I remember witnessing someone start to drown and some pool guy rescue him and resuscitate him with mouth to mouth..."

By Bob Reed

Here's the story of the person resusicated at Las Barcas (Playamar).

I was teaching swimming one day in the high season at Las Barcas.  I had to rope of that little area near the shallow end of the main pool near Las Barcas, cause the pool was so full of people that trying to teach was impossible.  In those days, I wore a water-proof watch to time my lessons.  Seeing this watch, maybe 5 kids/people would come up to me every 10 minutes to ask for the time.

So there I am, trying to get this kid to swim across this little space, and some child comes to the side and calls, "Senior, Senior!".  I tell this kid that I am in the middle of a lesson and when I am finished with this part, I will answer whatever, he wants. 

So, he waits.  Good for him, cause most kids would have been intimidated and left.  He stayed.  When my student had crossed the small space, I turned to the kid and said, "Que quieres?"  He said, "Senior, hay un senior al fondo de la picina!" (Mister there is a man at the bottom of the pool) 
"No shit!"  I thought.  I got out of the water and indeed there was a shadow lying on the bottom, about 3/4's towards the deep end of the pool.

I dived down and grabbed this body by an arm and brought it to the surface.  Then, I pinned one hand of the person to the wall and then while pinning the hand, climbed out and pulled the person up to the deck.  It was a young girl---maybe 22/23 years old, by the bathing suit, a Spanish girl.  She was not breathing and had no heart beat that I could detect.  She had 'cyanosis'---her skin color was blue from lack of Oxygen.  I went to work on her, pinched her nose and did mouth to mouth, gave chest compressions.  She threw up in my mouth.  Some Swiss lady came up and told me she was a medical doctor and administered a shot of epinephrine.  10 minutes went by.  All of a sudden, this girl spasmed, arched and took a breath!  She continued to breath.  She never regained consciousness, but continued breathing, and an ambulance eventually came and took her away. Eventually, a Spanish "Secret Police" friend came up and told me to clean up my moustache.

A couple of days later, a Spanish man from the North came up and sat next to me on the wall---my office.  He said he was the employer of this girl.  She had fully recovered (I was worried about brain damage, because of the time she was under).  The girl was apparently a kindermachen for his children and not being able to swim, had been playing with his kids and bouncing up and down on the bottom of the pool, until the pool suddenly got deep and then she had sunk.

He asked what did he owe me?  He said it was the custom in Spain that if someone saves the life of someone of your family, you owe him/her money.  I was embarrassed, and said, "Sir it was a great honor for me, to be able to perform this service.  You owe me nothing."

Really, the kid who hung in there by the side of the noisy crowded pool was the hero!