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Girls save drowning boy, earn lifetime waterpark passes

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MARGATE, Fla. — Two girls have been given lifetime passes to a Florida waterpark after they helped save a boy they found drowning in the pool.

Christine Regina, 7, noticed a young boy flapping his arms in the pool at Calypso Cove in Margate on June 18, and thought that he was playing, WTVJ reports. But when she went to swim underwater, she noticed the boy at the bottom of the pool and alerted Rebecca Valburn, 15, who dove in and rescued him.

"She didn't panic," Penny Jo Stone, Christine's grandmother, told WPTV.  Regina, who lives in Port St. Lucie, was visiting her grandparents in Margate.

"They called me a hero," she told WPTV.

The boy, Darryl McIntrye, 6, was taken to the hospital and made a full recovery. His mother, Pia Samuels, told the Sun Sentinel that he was able to leave the next day and Regina's act is something she will always remember.

"They are always going to be a part of me," she said. "They saved his life. It's a miracle."

WPTV reports Regina was recognized by the mayor of Margate with a plaque in her honor. "The outcome was awesome," Mayor Tommy Ruzzano told the Sun Sentinel. "This could have been a tragedy."