Two neighbors pull 3-year-old boy out of Belleville Lake

A three-year-old boy and his six-year-old sister were playing along the seawall on the shore of Belleville Lake when the boy fell into the lake.
This was at 178 North Liberty Street in Belleville between 4 and 5 p.m. Saturday, May 27.
Fred Trombley, 69, was working in his backyard at 110 N. Liberty, a couple of doors down, when he heard the little girl calling out, “Help. Help.” He started unloading things from his pockets as he ran to her, tossing away the screwdriver, clippers, and pulling off his kneepads that protected his bum knee.
He ran along the fronts of the properties and past the location so he vaulted over a fence to get to the right spot.
Trombley said when he got there, he looked into the water and saw a woman with a coral shirt face down in the lake. Another neighbor, Michelle Calahan, 50, had dived right in the water to help the boy. She saw the boy’s head and then it went down. She had her face in the water looking for him.
She found the boy and brought him up and was having trouble with buoyancy as she tried to get the water out of his mouth. She was next to the seawall and couldn’t get up so she called out to Trombley, “Take the boy.”
He grabbed the boy and pulled him up and then turned to her. He had both hands around one of her wrists, trying to hold onto her.
Then, a boat happened to go by and tossed a life preserver to Calahan. She grabbed the preserver and then was able to go along the seawall to the ladder there and climb out.
By then, Belleville Police had arrived. The boy was taken to the hospital for an evaluation and he was fine, said Police Chief Hal Berriman. He said Calahan had applied early CPR to the child.
“I’m really proud of them,” Chief Berriman said of the two residents who saved the child. “They did exactly the right things.”
He said he is working on getting civilian life-saving citations for both Calahan and Trombley.
Chief Berriman said police have been called to the children’s home many, many times because the children have not had proper supervision. He said police have called protective services before to check out the home and – after the accident –they have called them again.