By Erin Conroy
Boston Globe
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
BRIDGEWATER, Mass. — Officials are calling the dramatic rescue of a toddler from a swimming pool in Bridgewater a miraculous “alignment of the stars,” in which all the elements needed to save his life fell fortuitously into place.
Emergency crews raced to Stephanie Lane Tuesday and found parents and neighbors frantic as Kathleen Greene, a medical assistant who lives nearby, tried to resuscitate the boy on the deck of his family’s in-ground pool, said Fire Chief George Rogers.
Within 40 minutes of the call, the child was at Children’s Hospital in Boston, something Rogers called unprecedented under the circumstances.
The condition of the boy, whose second birthday is tomorrow, was not released yesterday, but Rogers said he is improving.
“All of the pieces to the puzzle were there for this to be an effective rescue,” Rogers said. “The cards all fell in his favor. It’s unheard of, just an alignment of the stars.”
Officials would not identify the family, saying they had requested privacy. The circumstances of the near-drowning were unclear.
Paramedics at the fire station yesterday reflected on what they said was the most intense rescue they have had.
“We can’t stop talking about it,” said Carol Berghaus, a paramedic of 15 years who was one of five paramedics at the scene. “We didn’t know what to expect when we got there. We just saw a limp, freezing, blue child and did everything we could to save him. When we were able to resuscitate him, it was the greatest feeling in the world.”
The boy had just been pulled from the bottom of the family’s swimming pool by his father, when Greene’s mother, Judith Whynock, heard the commotion and called police at 6:46 p.m., Rogers said.
As the man pulled his son onto the deck, Greene said, she rushed outside and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation with the boy’s mother.
“It is the first time I’ve ever used CPR in an emergency situation and the first time I’ve saved someone’s life,” said Greene, 24. “The woman didn’t really know what to do, so I had her do respirations while I did compressions.” She said she does not know the family well, because they moved next door about two months ago.
Greene said the boy’s father was sobbing in the front yard when paramedics arrived.
Paramedic David McGillis said an ambulance rushed the boy about 2 miles away to a Medflight helicopter, which arrived unusually fast, within five minutes, because it happened to be overhead, flying from Boston to Plymouth.
“Everything was aligned in this boy’s favor, and every second made a difference,” McGillis said. “It changed the whole outcome, saved this life. The sound of his first breath - that was the best.”
Matt Lake, the paramedic who answered the 911 call, said the minutes seemed like hours.
“As soon as I heard ‘baby in the pool,’ I just felt like we couldn’t get there fast enough,” Lake said.
A medical device that deposits heart-rate drugs directly into the bone marrow played a crucial role in saving the boy’s life, the paramedics said. The device, called an intraosseous infusion needle, was donated to the Fire Department last year.
Anxious to hear the boy’s condition, the paramedics said they hope to meet him under less stressful circumstances.
“Maybe he’ll come back to thank us some day,” Berghaus said.