Heroic efforts by two lifeguards at Tamaqua’s community pool saved three siblings from drowning in the deepest of depths.

“They were starting to go under,” explained Brandon Temarantz, 15, one of the H.D. Buehler Memorial Pool lifeguards credited with the saves.

It happened July 23 at the pool at Bungalow Park. It was a rather quiet day until 4:20 p.m. when fellow lifeguard Andrew Metters called to Temarantz.

“He told me that there were three kids near the diving well,” Temarantz recalled. “There were two of them who couldn’t swim. One of them was a sister, and she couldn’t swim but she was carrying both of them.”

The water beneath the diving boards is 13 feet, he said.

As Temarantz made his way to the area to keep his eye on the trio, he heard screams. They were beginning to sink.

“I dropped my whistle and grabbed my tube and I jumped in,” he said.

Another lifeguard blew a whistle twice to signal an emergency.

“I grabbed the one kid, and I put my tube out so they could float on it, and they didn’t grab the tube,” Temarantz said.

At that point, lifeguard Millie Black, 15, jumped in.

“So I grabbed the little kid and got him out. Millie grabbed the other two,” Temarantz noted.

The children were 11, 6 and 4 years-old.

“I was just focused on getting the kids out of the water and saving them,” he said of the adrenaline-filled moments.

Black also didn’t think twice.

“The only thing going through my mind was that I had to save them,” she said. “My job is to get everyone out of the water safely.”

Pool Manager Beth Fritzinger commended Temarantz and Black.

“I’m super-proud of them,” she said. “I get choked up thinking about them — the first time (saving swimmers from drowning).”

It was a situation, Fritzinger said, where some lifeguards might “freeze.”

“But no,” she said, referring to Black and Temarantz.

Black, of Lake Hauto, and Temarantz, of Andreas, are first year lifeguards and will be sophomores at the Tamaqua Area High School. Temarantz is a member of the swim and soccer teams, and Black belongs to volleyball, basketball and cross-country teams.