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Roger Giraldeau found himself wondering about the randomness of life after he learned the 73-year-old neighbour he pulled from a swimming pool in Boucherville on Wednesday — and was unable to resuscitate — was the same age as him.
“I’m better now, but I find it so tragic. It’s the first time something like this happens to me. I’m a little sad that she was the same age as me,” the retired banker told The Gazette on Friday. “I can tell you that when the police (took his statement) I was already having my second glass of Scotch. Then I had a glass of wine and I needed a pill to go to sleep.”
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In a statement posted on Facebook, Longueuil police said the 73-year-old woman was found unconscious in a residential pool behind a home on du Corbon St. at around 2:20 p.m. on Wednesday. The street is a crescent and even though the pool was in a yard behind Giraldeau’s home the neighbours share the same street name.
Giraldeau said he was outside when he heard the woman’s daughter cry out for help.
“I was in my yard, as they say ‘minding my own business,’ and this lady was yelling ‘Help!’ I didn’t know if it was a joke or not, but anyway I answered her by asking if she was in need of help. She said: ‘Yes. My mother is in the swimming pool. She drowned’,” Giraldeau said, adding the woman asked him to call 911, which he did.
“The fence was too high for me to jump it. So I ran around the block,” he said. “When I got to the house, the door to the backyard was locked, so I used my feet and I busted into the yard.”
When he looked toward the pool, he saw the woman in it with her daughter hanging on to her. A young boy, who was wearing a floatation device, was outside the pool. Giraldeau said he was later informed the young boy was the woman’s grandson.
“I jumped into the pool to get her out. I managed with difficulty, because it wasn’t easy to get her out of the water. I proceeded to give her CPR, or mouth-to-mouth, and a heart massage. I did it for about three minutes and then the police took over,” he said. “I still can’t wear my shoes because they’re wet.”
Giraldeau said he has resided on the street for 50 years and the people in the house behind him, where the woman drowned, moved in about three years ago. He said he didn’t get a chance to know his neighbours, beyond an introduction, before the tragedy occurred.
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