Yuma County dispatchers, deputies honored for saving toddler from drowning

Three Yuma County Sheriff’s Office dispatchers and two deputies were recognized for the quick work that helped save a 1-year-old girl who nearly drowned in March, a reminder of how fast a water emergency can unfold in Yuma County. The honors were folded into the sheriff’s office’s 39th Annual Awards Presentation and Recognition Ceremony, held Friday, March 20, 2026, at Britain Farm, where more than 250 employees, volunteers, family members and friends gathered to recognize work done during 2025.

Sheriff Leon Wilmot also presented Life Saving Awards to Deputies Pedro Rodriguez and Johnathan Campoverde for an act of heroism on February 10, 2026. YCSO describes its Communications Department, also known as Dispatch, as the link between the public and deputies, saying emergency dispatchers collect vital information from callers and pass it to responding patrol units.

The urgency of that chain of response was clear in another Yuma pool emergency last year. At about 7:38 p.m. on June 5, 2025, officers and the Yuma Fire Department were called to a possible drowning at a home pool in the midwest area of Yuma. Firefighters found the child had already been pulled from the water and a bystander was performing CPR. The girl regained a pulse at Onvida Health before being flown to a Phoenix hospital.

For parents heading into pool and canal season, the first minutes matter most. Call 911 immediately, give dispatch the exact location and the child’s condition, and follow instructions while help is on the way. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association say a child removed from the water without normal breathing or consciousness should be treated as if in cardiac arrest, with CPR and rescue breathing started as quickly as possible by someone trained to do it.