11-Year-Old Boy Saves Man More Than Twice His Size from Drowning: 'He Just Jumped Into Action'

Advaik Nandikotkur is being praised for pulling an unconscious 34-year-old man from a pool and saving his life

Photo: Eagan Police Department

An 11-year-old Minnesota boy is being praised for pulling an unconscious 34-year-old man from a pool and saving his life in an incident police are calling “amazing.”

Advaik Nandikotkur was with his uncle and mother at an indoor pool in the family’s apartment complex on Sunday when the man wandered into the deep end and became unresponsive. Despite being in a room full of adults, Nandikotkur was the only person present who knew how to swim.

“He jumped in the pool, swam to the bottom and grabbed the man. He was able to get him up to the surface and swim to the side of the pool,”Eagan Police Officer Aaron Machtemes tells PEOPLE.

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“I have never seen anything like this. A child saving an adult from drowning is something I never even considered. He’s a typical 11-year-old boy. He’s very quiet. But when the time was right he jumped in and did what he needed to do.”

After Nandikotkur pulled the man to the pool’s edge, his uncle and other adults administered CPR to the man, whose name has not been made public.

The man regained consciousness and was treated by emergency responders, Machtemes says. He was taken to a local hospital and is now “doing just fine.”

Machtemes says he was initially in disbelief when he learned what happened. The man weighs about 170 lbs., so police were shocked that the boy, who weighs just 70 lbs., managed to save the man’s life.

Nandikotkur, who learned to swim about three years ago, has been praised for his actions, but the boy told KMSP that he “feels uncomfortable with all the attention.”

“My mom told me to jump in,” Nandikotkur recalled to the station. “I said ‘he’s probably too heavy,’ but I jumped in anyway.”

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As a result of the incident, both Nandikotkur and his uncle have been nominated for the department’s Life Saving Award.

“He just jumped into action and jumped in and saved a guy who was drowning,” Machtemes gushed about the boy’s good deed to KARE. “And literally saved his life.”