MILTON, Mass. -- State park officials defended the actions of their lifeguards at a local pond after a toddler was pulled from a Milton swimming hole Sunday by a good Samaritan.

Witnesses said the lifeguards wouldn't give the boy CPR, but park officials said CPR wasn't needed.

NewsCenter 5's Jorge Quiroga reported that officials said lifeguards did not believe a 3-year-old boy was in danger when he was pulled from the pond.

"He was brought out onto the shore, and the lifeguard on hand determined that he had a pulse," Stephen Burrington of the state Department of Environmental Affairs.

The state officials claimed that the child's life was not in danger.

"He was breathing, and he was gurgling water and some vomit ... started to throw up a bit," Burrington said.

They insisted that two mothers who jumped in to help and who gave the child CPR created an unneccessary panic.

"The guards felt that the intervening was a little strong. They were literally pushed out of the way," said Pat Flynn of the Department of Conservation and Recreation.

"They were young kids who just got fragile in a situation that even adults may have got fragile because, God's sakes, everyone can tell you that when I was doing those compressions I was shaking," said La'May Johnson, one of the women who performed CPR on the boy.

Trained in CPR, Johnson and her friend Valerie Vaughn insisted that they had to act.

"Minutes were going by that this child was not breathing. So we were just like, you know what, they're not doing anything. We jumped in to do it," Vaughn said.

The man who actually pulled the child from the water agreed.

"I don't know whether they were young kids or just inexperienced, but they never actually took over the scene," Anthony Graham said.

An angry crowd gathered and a woman at the beach had to be arrested.

State officials, however, said giving CPR could have hurt the child, and they said the lifeguards did a good job.

"We're very proud of our lifeguards. We feel they did an excellent job in responding to the situation," said Gary Briere, state recreation director.

"They're flat-out lying because he didn't have a pulse. They didn't do their job," Johnson said.

The one point on which all sides seem to agree is that the entire incident could have been avoided if the child had had proper adult supervision in the water. The boy is reportedly recovering at a local hospital.