A Colorado woman is credited with helping to save the lives of three children who fell into a frozen pond over the weekend.

“Before I even realized it, I was out there on the middle of the pond, pulling two kids out,” she said during a press conference this week. “And that’s when I fell in the pond. For the third kid, I tried to hold her head up. I tried to hold my head up.”

A 16-year-old cousin of one of the children managed to throw a rope to Talavera and the third child to pull them from the freezing water.

“I’m thankful for that young man who threw the rope,” Talavera said. “I would have been in there longer, she would have been in there longer. I don’t know what would have happened.”

The three children who fell through the ice are 4- and 6-year-old girls and an 11-year-old boy, theDenver Gazettereported.

“Nobody was outside. It was me. I knew it was me that had to do it,” Talavera said of her heroic actions. “Before I even realized it, I was out there on the middle of the pond.”

“My instinct was to go outside and help them,” she added. “It was just … save the kids. They’re just children. I was just worried about them. I didn’t think about [myself].”

Once the children were out of the water, emergency personnel successfully administered CPR to the 6-year-old, who had no pulse when they arrived. She was taken to a local children’s hospital and transferred to the intensive care unit at Denver Health in serious condition, according to theGazette.

“We reverted back to what we were trained to do,” Deputy Justin Dillard said. “We’re all fathers and we all have young kids. It’s hard to see a 6-year-old girl whose face is blue with her eyes open and not responding, not breathing.”

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The other two children were not injured during the incident and were able to return home, the newspaper reported.

Talavera’s bravery and quick thinking even left a lasting impression on those who encounter danger as a regular part of their jobs.

source: people.com