Matt Wixon

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When the District 7-5A meet ended two weeks ago, Duncanville coach Jay Chagnon knew Taylor Thomas would get his vote for the district's outstanding swimmer. But not because the Duncanville junior had just won two individual events and swam on two winning relays.

He was most impressed by what the 16-year-old did when she wasn't racing.

It happened during the first heat of the girls 200-yard freestyle. In the outside lane at Duncanville's natatorium, behind the splashes of action drawing everyone's attention, a competitor from Irving Nimitz stopped swimming.

"Right after the flip turn, she just stopped," Chagnon said. "She drifted toward the left side of the lane and wasn't moving."

And she was face down in the water.

Two lanes over, waiting behind a starting block, Thomas was focusing on her upcoming race. But she noticed something was wrong, and despite knowing she could interfere with the race and possibly get disqualified from the meet, she ran to the pool and jumped in.

"My mom taught me since I was little how to save somebody because we do swim lessons at our house," said Thomas, the daughter of Duncanville assistant coach Margaret Thomas. "I was kind of on automatic. I wasn't really thinking about my race anymore."

As the other swimmers continued racing, Thomas flipped the girl over so her face was out of the water. Thomas, whose heat in the 200-yard freestyle was just minutes away, supported the unconscious girl with one arm and swam 10 yards to the edge of the pool.

That's when Nimitz coach Karroline Franklin and others reached the pool edge to provide help. After a 911 call, paramedics arrived, and the girl was taken away on a stretcher while wearing an oxygen mask. She was conscious during the trip to the hospital, an electrocardiogram showed no problems, and she was released from the hospital that night.

The girl had the flu a week earlier, her mother said, and "overexhausted herself and blacked out."

Her mother is thankful Thomas was there to help, but not surprisingly, the Nimitz swimmer doesn't want to talk about what happened.

Neither does Thomas, who is a little surprised by all the attention. But she deserves it.

"Seconds count in a situation like that," Franklin said. "It would've taken me another five seconds to get over there, and she could've aspirated water."

Franklin would know. She's been a lifeguard for eight years and also trains them. She said people on the pool deck seemed frozen in fear and didn't know what to do.

Thomas knew what to do, and more important, she did it.

"It really takes a certain kind of person to respond to something like that," Franklin said. "You can have all the training, but you have to have the instinct.

"I would certainly hire her as a lifeguard."

That might be in the future for Thomas, but today she is focused on the 5A Region II meet in Mansfield. Her district champion 200 medley and 200 free relay teams qualified for the meet. She's also in the 100 free and the 200 free, which she won at the district meet a few minutes after the scary moment at the pool.

Thomas said she likes to be very calm before a race and get into her "zone," but that wasn't possible before the 200 free at the district meet. Her adrenaline was pumping so hard that she felt shaky. Still, she won by eight seconds.

The competition will be much tougher today, but even a win won't be a bigger highlight than what happened at the district meet.

"I don't really know if it has sunk in what I've done," Thomas said. "My mom says I have no idea what I've done."

Chagnon does. He said he couldn't be more proud of her.

"That sealed the deal for my vote for district swimmer of the year," he said. "Taylor's a step above all of them. She saved somebody's life."