HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — An 8-year-old boy drowned after entering a fenced-in middle school swimming pool and getting sucked to the bottom against a circulation drain, would-be rescuers told police.

They said Daniel Williams and two friends went into the Attucks Middle School pool Wednesday night to retrieve a tennis ball that went over the fence. They squeezed through a gap between a locked gate and the 10-foot chains link fence, Hollywood police Lt. Roni Mangan said.

Daniel jumped in the pool to retrieve the ball. When he did not resurface, his friends ran screaming for help, Mangan said, and found a janitor. Perez Campbell, 19 a neighbor who also heard the screams, was let in by the janitor and dived into 9 feet of water to rescue Daniel.

"I started doing CPR on him," Campbell said. "Water kept on flushing out and out" of the boy’s nose and mouth.

Daniel was rushed to a hospital but could not be revived, Mangan said.