HOLLY SPRINGS, N.C. (AP) -- Two off-duty police officers pulled a drowning 4-year-old girl from an apartment complex pool and police said they are investigating whether to pursue child neglect charges.

Holly Springs officers Robert Parrish and Thomas Pierrie were working out in the weight room at Trellis Point apartment complex where Pierrie lives. The two saw the girl, Ida Bowden, and her 6-year-old cousin Tevin Farrington walk toward the pool Wednesday afternoon.

A few minutes later, Parrish saw the boy standing on the edge of the pool and water splashing.

The officers jumped into the water. Pierrie pulled the clothed girl to the surface and raised her out of the pool as she coughed up water. They warmed her with towels and tried to console the girl, who was scared and crying.
"Without question, they saved someone's life," Holly Springs Chief Cecil Parker said Thursday.

Paramedics arrived within minutes after the officers called Parker for help. Emergency workers released her to her father, John Haywood Bowden, who lives nearby.

"I'm lucky those officers were in the weight room," Bowden said. "If they weren't there, it would have been a totally different outcome."

Ida's 14-year-old sister was caring for the two young children Wednesday but wasn't at the pool when the girl fell in, Parker said. The girls' mother was at work, John Bowden said.

Parker's office was expected to decide as early as Friday whether neglect charges may be warranted.