A woman who saved a toddler from drowning in a pool has reunited with him for the second time—64 years later. CBS 8 San Diego covered the emotional reunion organized by Ben Colwell’s siblings, who is now 66, with his rescuer, Barbara Ribeiro, now 94.
In 1961, when she was known as Barbara Urban, she made headlines in the San Diego Sentinel. During a party in her thirties, she learned that a child had gone missing. Unsure why, she chose to search one particular house, which turned out to be the right one. Colwell, just 21 months old at the time, had wandered about a block away and fallen into a pool. Ribeiro recalled the terrifying moment of seeing him lifeless at the bottom of the pool and jumped in to save him. Following instructions from a neighbor, she performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR.
Although the families maintained contact for a while, Colwell’s family eventually moved away from San Diego. During their first meeting in over six decades, Ribeiro, who anticipated being emotional, greeted Colwell warmly with “hello, hello young man!”
Now a father of two and a business owner, Colwell expressed his joy at seeing Ribeiro again. He shared that he had heard from his mother that when he was found, there were no bubbles coming up from the water, indicating he might have been submerged longer than anyone realized. Reflecting on his survival, he remarked, “When I really think of it, I think ‘hand of God.’ He made sure that I made it for some reason.”