Bystanders rescue drowning girl at Lake Tapps

A 10-year-old child was in critical, but stable condition Sunday night, thanks to the quick action of bystanders who pulled the drowning girl from Lake Tapps.

Ritchie Garcia was paddle-boarding when she said a frantic woman called out to her.

“She goes, ‘I need help! I need help! Can you help me?'” Garcia said the woman explained that she needed help finding her granddaughter, who had disappeared while swimming. “And so everybody just started running into the lake, trying to find her.

That included Ritchie’s husband, Michael Garcia.

“We tried for several minutes to locate her because we didn’t have any idea about where her body was at,” Michael said. “Several of us swimmers were just kind of like searching in an area, kind of diving underneath and looking.”

The water was murky. Lehua Liang, who was on the beach with his family, grabbed his goggles for a better look and dove in.

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“Then I searched in this area, and then the other side,” Lehua said, gesturing to the lake, “and I noticed a girl was down there, on the bottom of the lake. I need to pull her up, but I need to surface up and catch a breath so I can dive down again. So I move up, and I yell to the crowd and say ‘I found her,’ and then I dive down again and took (her) up.”

Witness video showed several swimmers moving quickly toward Lehua, as they pushed the girl toward the shore and carried her out of the water.

Michael was among them.

“You know I may have had her for like five to seven seconds, but I think it was in that moment I was kind of praying over her. And just hoping the best for her,” he said.

Pierce County Deputy Carly Cappetto said the first 911 calls — from people on the beach — came in at 2 p.m. The girl was on shore by 2:08 p.m., where a deputy immediately performed CPR. She was rushed to a local hospital,

“I don’t know how she’s doing. Hopefully she’s OK,” Lehua said. When KIRO 7 reassured him the girl was in critical condition but alive, he was elated. “Oh my God, I’m so glad to hear! Oh, yes — I’m so glad to hear.”

The bystanders who leaped into action Sunday stressed it was a team effort, involving people who quickly called 911, those who pulled the girl out of the water, and the first responders who were there within minutes.