Girl taken to hospital after being pulled from water at Millerton Lake

MILLERTON LAKE, Calif. (KFSN) -- A girl is unresponsive after being pulled from the water at Millerton Lake on Sunday. Park rangers are not releasing the condition of the girl at the request of her family, but they say she was not showing signs of life after several minutes of CPR.

Pictures taken by horrified witnesses show the heart wrenching moments during a swimmer's attempted rescue.

"I just dropped whatever I had in my hands and just tried to do the best I could," said witness Anthony Sotomayor. He was just one of several people who tried to save a 16-year-old girl who was drowning in the chilly lake.

Witnesses at McKenzie Point say the teen went under while trying to save her brother. Once the boy was out of the water, witnesses said family members noticed the girl was nowhere to be found.

"The sister, she was a 16-year-old girl, was probably down there for about 10 or 15 minutes," said witness Maribel Tostado.

Park rangers said first responders went into rescue mode and eventually were able to pull her out of the water. Officials said the swimmer wasn't wearing a life jacket, and they had to perform CPR for 10 minutes before they could take her to a local hospital.

"All I kept looking at was her face, hoping that when they put the tubes to see if she would breathe and just hoping that she would breathe and just start coughing, but she didn't," said witness Elizabeth Peraza.

The area where the girl was found is an unguarded area, around the corner from the nearest lifeguard station. Park rangers said the beach drops off to steep waters.

"You would have thought something like that would have happened way off out there where it's deeper, and no, it happened right here," said Tostado.

McKenzie Point remains open for the remainder of the Memorial Day weekend holiday -- one of the busiest times of the year for Millerton Lake.