US swimmer Anita Alvarez rescued from bottom of the pool after fainting at World Aquatics Championships

Coach Andrea Fuentes came to the rescue of the 25-year old, who was found not breathing causing a massive scare at the venue. Fuentes dragged an unconscious Alvarez back to the surface before getting help to bring her out of the pool. The swimmer was then helped on a stretcher to the pool’s medical centre, with teammates and fans in shock poolside.

The US swim team later released a statement saying that Alvarez was doing well.

“It was a big scare. I had to jump in because the lifeguards weren’t doing it,” Fuentes later told Marca.

Rapid rescue.@AFP photographers Oli Scarff and Peter Kohalmi capture the dramatic rescue of USA’s Anita Alvarez from the bottom of the pool when she fainted during the women’s solo free artistic swimming finals at the Budapest 2022 World Aquatics Championships pic.twitter.com/8Y0wo6lSUn

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 23, 2022

The coach later spoke about the incident on Spanish Radio and revealed that Alvarez had fainted due to the effort expended during her routine.

“She only had water in her lungs, once she started breathing again everything was OK,” she said.

“It felt like a whole hour. I said things weren’t right, I was shouting at the lifeguards to get into the water, but they didn’t catch what I said or they didn’t understand. She wasn’t breathing. I went as quickly as I could as if it were an Olympic final.”

According to the coach, Alvarez planned to rest Thursday and was still in hope of competing in Friday’s team event after further medical checks.

“Anita feels good now and the doctors also say she is okay. Tomorrow she will rest all day and will decide with the doctor if she can swim free team finals or not,” Fuentes said.