Sammy’s Miracle

The following was written about 3-4 years after Sammy’s near-drowning accident, looking back and remembering events as well as I could. Some things stayed in my mind very clearly, while others passed in a blur.

We spent Thanksgiving 2002 at my brother Patrick’s house in Southern California. We lived nearby at the time, only about a 20-minute drive away. My parents, sister, and niece had also come from Utah for the holiday. Patrick had a big home with a swimming pool, hot tub, trampoline, big screen TV, etc. It was such a fun place to be! We loved hanging out there and spent a lot of time with him and his three children, Jordan (7), Scotty (5), and Ember(2), who were pretty close to the ages of Gabe (8), Josh (5), and Sammy (3). The kids always had so much fun together! That Thanksgiving we were excited to have another cousin, Kenya (6), in the mix. In fact, it was warm enough on Thanksgiving day that the five older kids had been out swimming for a long time. We had a wonderful holiday together.

The day after Thanksgiving my parents and Patrick had gone shopping. Scott was at work. My sister, Shannon, and I were at Pat’s house with my three kids, Pat’s three kids, and Kenya, Shannon’s daughter. All of the kids were in Pat’s bedroom watching a movie on his TV. Shannon was in the family room watching TV, and I was in the laundry room washing and folding clothes.

At some point the two youngest children, Sammy and Ember, got into the pool area. Sammy had just turned 3 and Ember was 2½ . The pool area had a fence surrounding it, but there was also a door from Pat’s bedroom and his bathroom. There were alarms attached but they weren’t active at the time. I’m not sure if the older kids didn’t notice them going out or just weren’t worried about it. Obviously, Shannon and I should have been more attentive, but we assumed they were just watching the movie.

We’re not really sure what happened when Sammy and Ember were outside. Ember was too young to explain and Sammy had no memory of it. I know that they liked to walk on a brick wall at the back of the pool. I could imagine Sammy losing his footing and falling in. There was also a slide. Maybe he went down the slide not realizing the consequences. That is hard to imagine, although he did like to play on the ladder. I had in fact caught him on video the day before climbing up that ladder and I was telling him to get down. He was playfully challenging me by going higher and higher until I had to turn off the camera to get him down. That was certainly freaky to watch later. However it happened, Sammy ended up in the water and was unable to swim.

My first knowledge that something was wrong was when Josh, who had turned 5 a couple of months previously, was screaming for me and running down the hall. I recognized that something terrible had happened by the sound in his voice as he called for me. He said, “Ember pushed Sammy in the pool!” (That is what he had assumed, although we determined that was probably not how it happened. It just didn’t seem in character with how she would act and their relationship.) I immediately followed him running out to the pool. I was expecting to see him in the water and was scanning my eyes all over the pool looking for him when I realized he was on the deck and looked to be unconscious. I was so confused. How could he have gotten out of the pool and now be unconscious? It didn’t make any sense to me. Could an angel have helped him? This thought stayed in the back of my head as I ran to him. His eyes were closed and he was very still and limp and looked kind of purple. I racked my brain for what I should do. I was thinking “Do I do CPR, mouth-to-mouth, what do I do?” I noticed he was very quietly moaning so I thought he must be breathing which means his heart must be beating, so no CPR or mouth-to-mouth. I picked him up and he was completely limp in my arms. I started to go towards the house with him. At this point Shannon had learned something was wrong and came out the door. I said, “Sammy was in the pool. What do I do? Do I call 911?” I was still in panic mode and couldn’t seem to think clearly. She said, “Yes. You call 911!”

I hurried inside and laid him on the floor. I called 911 and explained. I don’t know how long I was on the phone, but it seemed incredibly soon that I heard sirens. Luckily the fire station was very close and they knew exactly where the street was, a very small cul-de-sac in a network of windy and confusing streets. The paramedics ran in and started working on him. Sammy had been fully clothed, including shoes and socks. I remember them cutting off his clothes and throwing them to the side. They were giving him oxygen and checking him out. I was so focused on what they were doing that I didn’t realize that the other six kids were standing behind me watching it all. One of the men said, “You might want to get them out of here.” He was right. I imagine that was rather upsetting to them. Shannon took them all into the other room.

At some point while they were working on Sammy I talked to Josh to try and figure out what had happened. He said that Ember had run into the bedroom from the pool area and said “Sammy!” Apparently the way she said it Josh knew something was really wrong and jumped up to follow her. (Scott likes to joke that getting him away from the TV was a miracle in itself.) He said that he saw Sammy’s shirt in the pool but it took him a second to realize that Sammy was in that shirt. Sammy was close enough to the edge of the pool that Josh was able to kneel on the side of the pool and reach over to him and pull him to the side. He then dragged him up and out of the pool and laid him on the deck, in the spot where I found him. Josh was rather small for his age and Sammy was larger than average for his age. Although there is a two year age difference, Josh was only slightly taller and weighed only a few pounds more. It was amazing to me that he was able to lift almost his own weight up and out of the pool. The fact that Sammy was soaking wet, fully clothed, and unconscious must have made him even heavier. Amazed, I asked him “How did you do that?” I’ll never forget his response, “Jesus put electricity into my nerves.” (I didn’t even know he knew what nerves were!) I certainly believe he had some divine help there. I was right on target when I thought that an angel had helped Sammy out!

Once he had Sammy out, he then ran and got me. Looking back, we were impressed with his quick response and reaction to the situation, as well as Ember’s recognition of the danger and getting help quickly. We were lucky she was there. If Josh had seen Sammy there and panicked or had come to get me first, Sammy would have spent at least another minute or two underwater, which probably would have meant the difference between life and death at that point. Josh and Ember were true heroes that day.

The paramedics worked for some time on Sammy while I got the story from Josh as well as talking to a police officer about what had happened. I seriously thought during this time that the paramedics were going to “fix” him and be on their way. The fact that he had been moaning a little had given me hope that he was going to be okay. It really hadn’t occurred to me that he would have to go to the hospital, as crazy as that seems. I thought they would get his oxygen level back up and everything would be fine. So when they started loading him onto the gurney and getting him ready to transport I was really surprised. They asked if I wanted to go with them or follow. I decided I should follow so I would have my car. Unfortunately, they got ahead of me, and not being familiar enough with the route they were taking, I got lost. Luckily, I managed to find my way fairly quickly. Scott was able to get out of work and he met me at the hospital. My parents and Patrick were already there when we arrived.

So now I thought, “Well, the doctors need to check him out in the emergency room to make sure everything is okay, and then we’ll go home.” I’m not sure why I was in such denial. We spent quite awhile there without a lot of information. I’m sure they told us some things, but I can’t really remember much of what they said at that point. Later on, they told us they were admitting him to Pediatric ICU. Again, I was taken aback by this. I hadn’t imagined that he would have to actually stay at the hospital. I think they had stressed that this was serious, but I don’t think anyone had been very specific. It was at that point that a doctor came and talked to us and really spelled everything out. As I remember it, he said there was still a high probability that Sammy wouldn’t make it through this and if he did he would probably have serious brain damage. I don’t remember much hope being held out for everything being okay. They had run tests that hadn’t looked very good. This was when it finally all hit me. I recognized how bad this really was and that we could actually lose him. I just couldn’t imagine how we could survive that or what we would do if he were permanently brain damaged. I especially remember the love and support my mom gave me during that difficult time of coming to terms with all this information.

The next several days were spent watching his progress. He was on a ventilator because he couldn’t get enough oxygen breathing on his own. He developed a lung infection, which is usual in those circumstances I believe. He was kept unconscious because of the ventilator. The worst thing for me was when his whole body started swelling with extra fluids. I was told this was normal, but it was horrible to see because it made him look like a different person. Seeing this active, rambunctious boy lying in the hospital with tubes and wires coming out of his whole body was just so hard to believe.

There was one of his nurses that spent a lot of time with him who we particularly liked and I had a lot of confidence in her. She made it very clear that we shouldn’t get our hopes up too much. She had seen many similar cases, and often they turned out badly. It was very possible that he wouldn’t make it. I think she wanted to keep us really grounded in reality so we would be prepared for what could happen.

Sammy had many visitors from our family during that time, as well as from our bishop. It shocked and saddened everyone to see his condition. He also received priesthood blessings. I don’t recall the specific promises, but I remember that they were positive and hopeful and made us feel better.

I was attending college at the time and was taking a very challenging physiology class. It was strange sitting in the hospital all those hours reading my physiology book, getting ready for finals, learning about how the body works, and coming across things that related to what was going on with Sammy. In fact, when I called my physiology teacher to tell him what happened and that I didn’t know when I’d be back in class, he responded by explaining what happens to the lungs and why swimming pool water is much more dangerous than sea water. (It has to do with sea water being much closer to body fluids.) It was a strange thing to tell me at that time, but I guess he didn’t know what to say. I also remember sitting in that room just watching him and wondering what was going to happen. I felt horribly guilty that I had been responsible by not being more careful about the pool. Scott was so kind, comforting, and supportive. He was very strong during the whole time, although of course very concerned and scared as well. I remember tears and confusion and just feeling like this couldn’t be real.

It was the middle of the night one night, maybe the third or fourth night, and they were trying to lower Sammy’s dependence on the oxygen because they were hoping to get him off the ventilator. He wasn’t doing very well. I had been studying, and the idea came to take a break and sing to him. I had talked to him and held his hand a lot, but I don’t think I had sung to him at all yet. So I sat on his bed and held his hand and sang a lot of his favorite songs, like I would when I would put him to bed at night. I specifically remember singing “You are My Sunshine,” a favorite of his. The nurse came in after I had been singing awhile. He was checking his monitors and was amazed. He said his oxygen levels were much better and that he had really improved since he had last checked him. He told me I should definitely keep singing. He couldn’t think of anything else that would account for the difference.

Sammy continued to improve through that night and I think it was the next day that they decided to take out the ventilator. They were slowly waking him from his induced coma in preparation for taking the tube out. This was wonderful news. At this point I believe it was pretty much looking like he would survive, but they were still uncertain on what his brain function would be. I was feeling very optimistic since he had responded to my singing. Also, at one point as he was waking someone had asked “Where’s Daddy?” and he pointed right to his dad. We felt like these had been good signs that his brain was working and that he understood things.

Taking out the ventilator was quite traumatic for both me and Sammy. Waking up for him was just horrible. I could only imagine what he felt. He was in an unfamiliar place with all these things in his body. He probably felt pain or at least discomfort. He couldn’t talk because of the tube, but he looked at me with such fear in his eyes that I started to cry. The doctor looked at me and said, “Why are you crying? He’s getting his ventilator out. This is a great thing.” Basically, of all the times I chose to cry this seemed like a strange one. I said, “But he doesn’t understand what’s happening to him. He’s so scared.” Before that, he was out of it and didn’t know what was going on and couldn’t feel anything. I could handle it more when it was us being scared. It hurt me so much to see his pain and fear.

After that, the worst was over. He went to the regular pediatric unit for about a day, and then was transferred to our hospital that our insurance covered. There, although he started to heal physically, I was very concerned about his behavior. He seemed jittery and strange. He wasn’t acting like his old self. One night he was having a very hard time going to sleep. He would start to fall asleep and then jerk out of it, like he was afraid to sleep. He talked about falling, cold, dark, being stuck, etc. His eyes were filled with fear. I felt pretty sure he was remembering his experience. He finally did fall asleep, and he has never talked about it again. He seemed to have no recollection of it at all, even when we’d try to ask questions about it. He was put on medication to prevent seizures, which the doctor said would be possible because of the accident. His behavior improved over the next couple of days. It turns out coming off all the medications he had been on was probably responsible for his strange behavior. Months later, when I decided to wean him off the medicine he had been prescribed for seizures, his behavior returned completely back to normal as it had been before. He was still kind of hyper and crazy, but he was actually that way before the accident, so I guess we couldn’t really be surprised about that. No other problems or health concerns have arisen related to his accident. He isn’t even afraid of the water, which I thought would be bound to happen. He’s a great swimmer now, a very bright kid, and full of energy and joy as always.

Many things worked together for Sammy’s good at that time. It was a particularly cold day, where the previous day had been warm enough that we had all been out swimming. The colder water can slow down the body, buying more time. Ember reacted quickly. Josh reacted quickly and miraculously well. The paramedics were especially close and arrived amazingly fast. My brother lived near one of the best children’s hospitals in Southern California, where Sammy received top-notch care. He survived and thrived even when it looked like he wouldn’t. It was a horrible experience, but much good came out of it too. We felt the outpouring of love and support from family and friends. We learned not to take things for granted as much. We were able to see prayers answered and to witness miracles, the miracle of Josh’s rescue and the miracle of Sammy’s complete recovery with no lasting damage. We believe Heavenly Father has a plan for Sammy that hasn’t been accomplished yet. He showed His hand in so many ways in leading Sammy and our whole family through that difficult time.