USS Monterey Sailor Saves a Life

By Chief Mass Communication Specialist Scott Boyle, Naval Surface Force Atlantic Public Affairs

April 6, 2010 - NORFOLK (NNS) -- A Sailor from the Norfolk-based Guided Missile Cruiser USS Monterey (CG 61) saved a young boy from drowning April 4.

Fire Controlman 2nd Class Dustin Kilgore was talking to a friend on his balcony at the Holly Point Apartment complex in Chesapeake, Va., when he heard a scream and splashing coming from the large canal and pond outside his apartment.

"I yelled to a woman screaming and asked what happened," Kilgore said. "She yelled that her nephew was in the water and couldn't swim."

Kilgore immediately dropped the cell phone and ran out of his apartment to the edge of the murky pond. He jumped in and began swimming to the boy, about 300 feet away.

"My instincts kicked in, and I just wanted to get the child out of the water," Kilgore said.

By the time he reached him, the boy had sunk to the bottom of the canal. With his hands wide, he crouched down, dredging the bottom. A few frantic minutes passed when Kilgore's foot touched something.

"I reached down and felt his thigh," he said. "Then, I yanked him out of the water and started carrying him to the edge."

"The edge" was a concrete ramp another 75 feet from where the boy fell in the water. The boy didn't have a pulse and wasn't breathing. Kilgore immediately started Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR).

"It was instinct, being a parent; whatever it was, I just reacted and used my training," he said.

Kilgore repeated the process - 15 chest compressions, a breath, cleaning the murky water from the boy's mouth - he repeated the process over and over. Then, there was a pulse. Kilgore didn't stop.

"We're taught to always continue until relieved, so I did until the paramedics came," he said.

Paramedics arrived and took over. A few minutes later, the boy was breathing again, and he was rushed to the hospital.

"I'm not surprised at all by what he did," said Lt. j.g. Christopher Apt, Kilgore's division officer on Monterey. "He is such a great guy."

Two days later, the local news media interviewed Kilgore at the same location about the events of Easter afternoon. Standing in his service dress blue uniform just yards from the concrete ramp he knelt on a few days before, he tells the story again.

A few witnesses to the events come up and smile.

"That boy saved his life," one says.

"No way he survives if that kid doesn't do what he did, what a hero," says another.

As the interviews end, a woman walks up to hug him. She tells him her grandson, two years old, happy and full of life is okay and coming home from the hospital.

"That was all I cared about," Kilgore said. "I just wanted to know he was going to be alright."

After all that happened, Kilgore reflected on the events of Easter Sunday.

"A twist of fate, spiritual, whatever you want to call it, I was just in the right place at the right time," he said.