CARROLL COUNTY, Ga. — A teenager who drowned while playing in a river with family members is being hailed by loved ones as a hero, for saving her sister from that same fate.
Alyssa Calhoun, 14, drown in the area of the McIntosh Reserve Park in Carroll County Friday afternoon.%
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Carroll County sheriff’s official said they responded to the call of two children struggling in the water.
"The girls were down at the river with their father and were playing on a noodle. And the noodle got away from them and by that time the father wasn't able to react in time to get them. He couldn't swim either," said Lt. Guy Pope with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department.
Family members told Channel 2’s Steve Gehlbach that Kendall, age 6, did not know how to swim.
Alyssa Calhoun was a freshman at Newnan High School.%
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She struggled to keep her sister afloat when she lost the noodle in the water, but did not survive.
Kendall Calhoun was airlifted to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, where she was still being treated in the Intensive Care Unit Saturday afternoon.
Jeanette Calhoun, the girls’ grandmother, told Gehlbach Saturday that Kendall was on oxygen machine but has started to breathe some by herself as well.
A GoFundMe page has been made to help the family: https://www.gofundme.com/rgvvj38c
Cox Media Group
