Cameron Harper, 12, of Frankfort, has heard his name on the radio, read it in several newspapers and knows he is a buzz from Mokena to Wisconsin for using CPR to save the life of a 5-year-old boy, Tyler Martin, on Feb. 6. He’ll also receive a Lifesaving Award from the Mokena Fire Department on Tuesday, March 8.

“I kind of think that all this publicity isn’t really about me,” Cameron said. “I would say it’s about teaching people CPR. If you taught somebody somewhere CPR and they saved somebody—that’s one person’s life saved.”

Cameron was going down a water slide with his sister, Mary-Katherine, 5, at an indoor pool at Cranberry Country Lodge in Tomah, Wisc., when they both heard Jacinda Edwards scream. Cameron, Mary-Katherine and Kathy, their mother, saw a boy floating seemingly lifeless in the pool.

“Basically I think the adrenaline kind of took over,” Cameron said. “All I thought about was saving this boy’s life. . . Actually, at first I was scared because I saw this boy lying there and I thought ‘Oh my God, what happened to him?’”

An older man, who Kathy said preferred to remain anonymous when she tried to get his information after the incident, started doing chest compressions on Tyler. 

Kathy said she knows CPR, but said she was panicked. “I saw my son and I yelled, ‘He knows CPR and let him through!’”

Kathy dialed 9-1-1. The older man, tired from doing chest compressions, stepped aside, Cameron said.

To keep calm, he remembered tips from CPR classes he took at the Mokena Fire Department and at his school, St. Mary’s Catholic School in Mokena. His 6th grade teacher, Kathy Winters, said the beat to the song, “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees is just the right beat to do chest compressions.

“The seconds are critical,” Kathy said. “You feel like two minutes is such a short amount of time, but you’re counting one-one thousand, two-one-thousand and it feels like an eternity.”

Then on the 32nd compression, Tyler began to cough and Cameron stood up.

“I think I was about to cry. It was tears of joy, I would say, because he came back to life,” Cameron said. “Basically, I felt this huge wave of relief that came over me. I thought, ‘Wow, I don’t know what would’ve happened if I wasn’t there. I took those classes and I paid attention and it saved someone’s life.”

Mokena Fire Protection District Sgt. Jerry Johnson said this is the second life that he knows of that has been saved through local classes in his 19 years of teaching CPR.

“Two in 20 years doesn’t sound like a whole lot but it makes every minute of teaching worth while,” Johnson said, adding his department has taken steps to host affordable options for people of all ages to learn CPR.

The Mokena Fire Department hosts CPR classes every first and third Monday at each of the fire stations for $25 per person.

“One of the things that Mokena truly believes in is the tools with which they can possibly save a life, therefore, we make them as affordable as possible,” Johnson said.

The fire department also offers a free babysitting clinic and a library of CPR tools for people to check out and learn CPR at home.

“They are not certified [when they take classes at home], but I‘ve always said a little CPR is better than no CPR,” Johnson said.

Cameron is taking his experience back home to teach Mary-Katherine and his brother, Christoper, 10, CPR. He also said he plans to talk to his fellow students at St. Mary’s  about signing up for a CPR class.

“If we can encourage even 10 people to get certified in CPR, that’s going to be 10 people who weren’t trained that could save a life,” Kathy said.

For more information on Mokena Fire Protection District’s CPR classes, go to www.mokenafire.org or call 708-479-5371.

—By Amy Alderman, Triblocal.com reporter