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Kissimmee man who helped save kids from pond honored PDF Print E-mail
Around Osceola
Wednesday, 23 June 2010 00:00
By Juliana A. Torres
For the News-Gazette
Kevin Rios-Nieves could barely contain his emotions as he quietly thanked the Kissimmee police and fire departments for honoring his act of heroism this week.
He’s credited with saving a 5-year-old kindergarten girl and her 1-year-old baby brother after their van crashed into a retention pond last month.
But the death of the children’s father, the driver of the van, still haunts him.
“I tried to go for the dad, but I couldn’t. By the time I got there, I was too late,” he said, tears welling.
On May 14, the 20-year-old was in the Flora Ridge Elementary School office when a parent came running in, yelling for someone to call 911 because a white van had driven into a retention pond outside. Fearing the van might contain a loved one, Rios-Nieves ran outside, and then another 100 yards to the pond.
When he got there, he said he heard a girl shouting, “Can somebody please help me?”
He jumped in the water, got the girl out first and then pulled the baby from a car seat before the van sunk out of reach. Police attributed the crash to a sudden medical condition with the driver, 37-year-old Eric Maceo Logan.
The city honored Rios-Nieves during the commission meeting Tuesday.
“Mr. Rio’s ability to maintain his composure and rescue two children from the sinking van was extraordinary, and he should be commended for going above and beyond to save the lives of those children,” Kissimmee Police Chief Fran Iwanski said.
Rios-Nieves, who turned 20 just two days before the crash, had been arrested for violation of probation in March and didn’t try to paint himself as a perfect citizen as he accepted a Life Saving Award from the city.
“I used to do bad things. Now it’s like, changed,” he said. “This is a big start for me, a new beginning.”
He also didn’t take full credit for his heroism.
“A lot of people have been telling me, ‘I don’t think I could do it.’ It just came out. In the same way, it was God,” he said.
His grandmother, Olga Rivera, of Puerto Rico, said she wasn’t surprised by her grandson’s act of heroism.
“Always, he’s had a beautiful heart, a very, very good heart,” she said.
 

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