Olympic Swim Coach Recalls “Nightmare” of Saving Anita Alvarez After She Passed Out

After an artistic swimmer fainted in the pool during the 2022 World Aquatics Championships, the Team USA coach who heroically saved her recounted the “scary” incident.

By Ashley Joy Parker Jun 29, 2022 12:40 AMTags
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A gold-worthy rescue.

Following Olympian Anita Alvarez's frightening fainting incident in the pool in Budapest, the Team USA coach who dramatically jumped in to save the artistic swimmer described the experience as a "difficult nightmare."

Andrea Fuentes, 39, told People that when she spotted the athlete sinking to the bottom of the pool during the 2022 World Aquatics Championships on June 22, her "only goal was to fix it."

"I thought that she was just doing a huge effort and I was proud of her because that's the world champs, it's the final," she recalled, noting that she noticed Alvarez's feet were a little bit more pale than usual. So I was like, she's pushing through her limit as much as she can."

It wasn't until the 26-year-old didn't come up for a breath after the end of her routine that Fuentes knew something was seriously wrong.

"I realized that she was not okay because in our sport, it's really important to breathe when you finish," she explained. "So as soon as she went down, I immediately recognized that she passed out."

She added, "I know her very well, I see her a lot of hours every day."

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Feeling responsible for her athletes, Fuentes—who previously won four synchronized swimming Olympic medals for Spain before becoming a coach—didn't have to think twice about springing into action.

"My thought at that moment is, OK, I have to take her out. Because I don't know, I was not expecting nobody to go," she recalled. "So, I just went as fast as I could and it was I think the longest 25 meters of my life."

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When Fuentes finally reached Alvarez the swimmer was touching the bottom on the 10-feet-deep pool, so she used the ground to propel them both up.

"We reached the surface and I noticed that she was not breathing," Fuentes shared. "I just said, 'Do whatever it takes to make her breathe.'"

Her "extremely painful" methods included a slap and pressure to the pinky nail, which is used "when somebody's gone."

"If this doesn't wake the person up, then you have a big problem," she explained. "But in this case, it's so painful that the body creates a lot of adrenaline and wakes you up."

Fortunately, she said the nail method worked, and Alvarez regained consciousness. The following day, the swimmer took to social media to assure those who were concerned that she was fine and planned to continue competing.

Zsolt Szigetvary/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

"Thank you everyone," Alvarez wrote on her Instagram Story June 23. "Know that I am okay and healthy! I appreciate all of the messages of support and hope everyone can respect that my team and I still have 2 more days of competition to be focused on here in Budapest."

While the incident seemed shocking to many, Fuentes previously reminded the public these kind of things happen in other high-endurance sports too.

"Marathon, cycling, cross country… we all have seen images where some athletes don't make it to the finish line and others help them to get there," she explained in a statement shared on the USA Artistic Swimming Instagram page "Our sport is no different than others, just in a pool, we push through limits and sometimes we find them."

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