PINEVILLE, W.Va. — Piper Cook is only nine years old, but she can proudly tell you the story about saving somebody’s life. Piper was recently honored by West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin for her brave effort to pull a toddler out of the Palisades Park swimming pool in Pineville last summer.
“The lifeguards were all on break and they had gone into the locker room with no eyes on the pool,” said Piper’s mother Rachel Cook. “The kids were sitting around the pool and there was a two-year-old standing at the nine-foot end. One of the bigger kids was running and accidentally knocked him into the pool.”
The youngster hit the water with no adults nearby to help.
“We all saw it happened. We were across the pool at the two foot end and we couldn’t get to him,” Rachel said. “None of the lifeguards were out there.”
Piper, a third grader at Pineville Elementary, didn’t hesitate.
“I jumped in and pulled him over to the side,” she said. “He was only two. He was crying.”
While Piper was busy saving a life, panic had set in around the pool.
“Piper jumped in and swam him to the side of the pool,” said Rachel. “The lifeguards all came running out but by that time she had him to the side of the pool.”
“His mom came running at me,” said Piper. “So I just handed him off to the lifeguards.”
Amazingly, it marked the second time during the summer she saved a life.
“At my Nana’s pool my little brother fell in,” said Piper. “So that was the second time.”
For her split-second thinking and brave action, Gov. Tomblin presented Piper with the first-ever Junior Mountaineer Award during a ceremony at the state Capitol.
“He said I was a brave little girl,” said Piper of meeting the governor.
“We’re always proud of her, but it was a different kind of proud,” said her dad Craig Cook. “She saved a kid’s life. That’s a big deal.”
“We’ve always focused on our kids being very comfortable in the water and swimming well,” said Rachel. “She didn’t think, she just jumped in and took care of business.”