Teen found at bottom of pool after lesson

A 14-year-old boy was in critical condition in a hospital after being pulled from the bottom of a swimming pool at the Centre Père-Marquette sports complex in the Rosemont—La-Petite-Patrie borough Thursday morning.

Urgences- Santé paramedics arrived at the centre on de Drucourt St. at 9:50 a.m. and found the boy in cardiac arrest on the deck of the pool, said François Labelle, chief of operations for Urgences- Santé.

Paramedics were able to get the boy’s heart beating before taking him to a nearby hospital, but he had been under water for an unknown period of time before he was discovered.

The boy is a student at École Père-Marquette, a high school across the street from the sports centre. Students at the school take swimming lessons regularly in the sports centre, which is linked to the school via an underground tunnel.

The victim was in the first swimming course at the centre Thursday morning, which normally ends at 9:20 a.m., the Montreal Gazette has learned.

Students entering the pool area for the second course, which was to start at 9:40 a.m., spotted the boy at the bottom of the pool and notified the lifeguard, who pulled him out and began life-saving procedures.

Two other people at the scene were taken to a hospital to be treated for shock.