{"id":316397,"date":"2026-08-07T22:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/316397\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:50:09","slug":"3-young-people-save-autistic-nonverbal-newark-campers-life-in-very-emotional-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/316397\/","title":{"rendered":"3 young people save autistic, nonverbal Newark camper’s life in “very emotional situation”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A day at the pool turned into a life-and-death emergency Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A camper and two lifeguards went to a Newark pool expecting a normal summer day. A child’s life depended on all three.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A 13-year-old camper went into the pool at Saint Peter’s Park Recreation Center on Lyons Avenue just before 10 a.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"overmyer-5p-pkg-newark-wcbsiodl-hi-res-still.jpg<\/p>\n

Kye Muse-Thomas<\/p>\n

CBS News New York<\/p>\n

Kye Muse-Thomas heard a friend screaming for help. A fellow camper, who is autistic and nonverbal, was suffering a seizure in the pool. Muse-Thomas was there to help his friend out of the water.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Well, actually, honestly, I didn’t do CPR after all. But I did pick him up heroically, and I saved his life, actually,” Muse-Thomas said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That CPR was done by teenage lifeguards Rafaela Cura and Kyayla Dixon-Hammond. Their typical day at the pool doesn’t involve emergencies, Cura said, but rather “cleaning up boo-boos and telling people to stop running.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"overmyer-5p-pkg-newark-wcbsiodl-hi-res-still-00-00-4713.jpg<\/p>\n

Kyayla Dixon-Hammond and Rafaela Cura.<\/p>\n

CBS News New York<\/p>\n

The unresponsive camper was their first real emergency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I did compressions while Kyayla did ventilation, and it was a very emotional situation where we had to, like, put our training to use,” Cura said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It took five cycles of CPR, but then the boy gasped.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s kind of scary when you realize you’re working with somebody who doesn’t have a pulse and then you get their pulse back,” Dixon-Hammond said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Relief. I think I breathed with him for the first time he was breathing,” Cura said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paramedics took the boy to the hospital where he’s recovering.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cura and Dixon-Hammond credit their training, their teamwork, and a friend who was there to help.<\/p>\n

“I feel courageous and brave and heroic with my unexpected heroism,” Muse-Thomas said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All three learned a little about themselves \u2014 that sometimes what we’re made of doesn’t show up until someone else needs us to find it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A day at the pool turned into a life-and-death emergency Thursday.\u00a0 A camper and two lifeguards went to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13215,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-316397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-featured-stories-amp-web-exclusives","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}