Greenwood swimmer helps save coach in pool

Greenwood - A high school swimmer helped save the life of her swim coach during practice this week.

"It's kind of like a dream. Kind of unbelievable," said Greenwood High School freshman Hannah Fuller.

Fuller was at the school's pool for a practice when her coach, Chas Grimm, when an unexpected circumstance changed two lives.

"I was swimming underwater at the end of practice. I had done three lengths underwater," said the coach. "Just holding my breath too long caused me to go unconscious."

The incident happened at the end of practice Wednesday, when the coach challenged his swimmers.

"He told us we could get out of practice early if one of us could beat him swimming underwater," Fuller said.

But three laps into his swim, in water about seven feet deep, Hannah realized something was wrong.

"I went over and looked at his face and it was really, really blue. Really, really dark," Fuller said.

So she did what her coach trained her to do.

"I just remember getting underneath him, putting one of my arms on his shoulder and making sure his head was up," Fuller said.

The girl is quick to admit while she was first in the water, an assistant coach and a lifeguard pulled the coach out of the water and resuscitated him. Like the school's swim meets, she said, it was a team effort.

"I feel like the other people did so much more than I did," Fuller said.

"It was just embarrassing, more than anything," Grimm said.

For the first time since the accident, Grimm was back on deck Saturday, feeling healthy and a little bit wiser.

"There could have been a lot of bad things that happened to me," he said. "Very grateful everyone acted quickly."

As for Fuller, who dove in when others stood by, she's also learned that no matter how skilled you seem on the surface, everyone needs a safety net.

"Lifeguards are needed everywhere," she said.

Fuller said she planned to be a lifeguard, but changed her mind after the experience, saying she doesn't want to go through anything like that again.