Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris got the chance to reconnect with a boy whose life he changed forever.
Wyatt, a 3-year-old who almost drowned on Memorial Day in Las Vegas, met up with Morris again at Rams practice, a reunion featured on Friday’s “Good Morning America.”
The two embraced on the corner of the practice field, marking the first time either of them had seen each other since Morris had helped to save the boy’s life.
Morris, who was vacationing with his family at the Encore at Wynn Las Vegas hotel, helped save the child from drowning in the hotel pool.
When Wyatt was first taken out of the pool, the child did not have a pulse.
The coach told ABC that when he saw Wyatt at the bottom of the pool, his skin was blue, and he began asking those nearby to search for help.
“I could feel the panic of it all when you feel like you’re alone,” Morris said on the show.
Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris smiles before a game last season.APFortunately for Wyatt, someone else was there to help, too.
Dr. Andrew Oleksyn, an emergency medicine physician, helped perform CPR on the child as Morris coordinated with others on the scene to locate and deliver the automated external defibrillator (AED) to the doctor.
Morris said he started to clap once he heard that Oleksyn felt a pulse.
Morris knew about the importance of AEDs because he and the Rams received training on the device after Damar Hamlin’s on-field cardiac arrest in January.
Since that fateful day, Hamlin has become an advocate for AEDs, recently talking on Capitol Hill in support of a bill that would increase the number of devices in schools.
Hamlin, after his scary incident, took part in full team drills at Bills practice on Tuesday for the first time in five-plus months after nearly dying on the field in Cincinnati.
Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin poses with a AED (Automatic Electronic Defibrillator) to help resuscitate heart attack victims, to local community groups following the announcement of the first program of his Chasing M’s Foundation. AP Wyatt’s family could not be more grateful for the help from Morris and Oleksyn.
“We are truly so happy that Raheem was there and Dr. Andrew was there,” Wyatt’s mother Kelseigh Stanley told ABC. “Truly, again, miracle. God placed them all directly where they need to be.”
