As Riley played in the shallow end, she watched the 18 MONTH OLD amble over to the pool steps near her. “Then, as soon as I turned away—bloop!—she fell in,” she says. Riley, a strong swimmer, thought about shouting for help but realized she had to act fast. “There was no lifeguard, and the girl’s parents were sunbathing by the side of the pool with their clothes on,” she reveals. So she dove down about three feet and retrieved the child from the pool’s bottom. “When I brought her up, I shouted, ‘I’ve got the baby! I’ve got the baby!’” Riley says.
The girl’s parents jumped up from their chairs and came running. The toddler had only been underwater for a few seconds and—though coughing and crying—was fine. After thanking Riley, the couple returned to their hotel room with their kids. She never saw them again.

How did the first-grader manage to stay so composed? “She’d been taking swimming lessons since she was 2, so she feels very confident in the water,” says her mom, Jaime Braden, a nurse practitioner. “Plus, HER FATHER AND I WERE FORMER SEARCH AND RESCUE DIVERS , so the idea of saving someone is very familiar to her.”