10-Year-Old Alabama Twins Save Drowning Dad With CPR They Saw in Movies

Meghan Overdeep
·2 min read
2
Brad Hassig Twin Sons
Brad Hassig Twin Sons

Hassig Family

Introducing his sons to two classic coming of age movies paid off in ways one Alabama dad could never have imagined.

On June 14, Brad Hassig was hanging out in the pool of his Mountain Brook home with his 10-year-old twin sons Christian and Bridon and their neighbor Sam, 11, when something strange happened.

"It was a typical afternoon—we had music on the speakers and I was doing breathing exercises underwater to relax," Brad, a 46-year-old chiropractor, told Today. "I wasn't pushing myself or trying to be a Navy Seal."

Then suddenly he lost consciousness.

"I went from just complete peace, saying the Lord's Prayer and then everything was just white," Brad recalled.

Hassig Twins Sam
Hassig Twins Sam

Hassig Family

Sitting on the deck, the three boys noticed that something wasn't right. Brad was floating on his side and shaking, so Christian dove in to investigate. Realizing that his father's face was turning blue, he yelled for the other two boys. They each grabbed a shoulder and pulled him out onto the steps.

Unable to unlock Brad's phone and with their mother at work, Christian began knocking on neighbors' doors. When no one answered, he ran into the street and flagged down a car and asked the driver to call 911.

Meanwhile, Bridon had started CPR on his dad. He had no emergency training, but he did remember seeing mouth-to-mouth performed in his two favorite movies: Hook and The Sandlot.  The 10-year-old reenacted what he had seen until EMS arrived and rushed him to the hospital.

Brad was released from the hospital 24 hours later. He told Today that he has trouble catching his breath and has been fatigued, but he's getting better.

He credits his rescue to the boys' heroism and some divine intervention.

"There's no way, physically, they should have been able to pull a 185-pound man out of the water like that and to know and do what all of them did, perfectly as quickly (as they did)," he told Today. "No lack of action, to run as fast as they did. It's God's hands all over it."