A woman who rescued a drowning toddler from a pool has met him again for just the second time—64 years later.
CBS 8 San Diego was live at the reunion organized by siblings of Ben Colwell, now 66, with his savior Barabara Ribeiro—now 94.
She was Barbara Urban back then—in 1961 when she made the front page of the San Diego Sentinel. In her thirties, she was attending a party when word spread through the guests that a baby had vanished. Fanning out to search the neighborhood, she says she doesn’t know why she picked the house she did, but it was the right one.
21-month-old Colwell had wandered about a block away from the party and fell into the pool. Ribeiro described the scene—of Colwell’s body down at the bottom of the pool—as “scary frightening.” She jumped in, pulled him out, and performed both mouth-to-mouth and CPR on the instructions of a neighbor who knew how.
Though the families kept in touch, it wasn’t long before Colwell’s family moved out of the San Diego area. Meeting each other for the first time in 64 years, Ribeiro, who warned the TV crews she was liable to cry, welcomed Colwell, saying “hello, hello young man!”
Now a business owner and father of two, Colwell said it was so nice to see her.
