Toddler thought drowned is alive

A hospital worker preparing a drowned toddler for the funeral home on Thursday noticed the Idaho boy was breathing more than an hour after he had been pronounced dead.

The 22-month-old boy, Logan Pinto, is in critical condition at a Salt Lake hospital but showing signs of improvement, Rexburg Police Capt. Randy Lewis said Friday.

Logan apparently wandered away from his baby sitter and fell into a canal near his home in Rexburg, Idaho, about 275 miles east of Boise. The child was submerged for nearly 30 minutes before police Cpl. Colin Erickson found him a half mile downstream, Lewis said.

Though an officer gave him CPR and emergency workers did everything they could to revive him, Lewis said, all efforts failed and the boy was pronounced dead.

After giving the boy's mother and stepfather, Debra and Joe Gould, some time to say goodbye, Lewis said, Madison Memorial Hospital nurse Mary Zollinger began to prepare Logan's body for the funeral home.

But when she looked at the boy, she noticed his chest was slightly moving. Logan was alive.

The child was flown to Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City, where he was listed Friday morning in critical and guarded condition. Late Thursday, he was breathing on his own and his color had returned, Lewis said, but he was placed back on a respirator Friday.

"I'm just amazed and overwhelmed with what took place," Lewis said. "They aggressively worked on him for quite a bit of time, and, of course, it's a bad situation when you have to let the parents know that their son has passed away."

But despair turned to joy, Lewis said, when emergency workers learned the boy was alive.

"It's called divine intervention, I think. I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe it hardly, especially after leaving there and seeing what had transpired," he said. "With all the machines on, there was absolutely no vital signs, no nothing. They were trying to stimulate the heart with electric shock and nothing was working. I don't know how to explain it. It's joyous and relieving," Lewis said.

The near-drowning happened while Logan was at a baby sitter's house, Lewis said. He was playing in the front yard when some of the baby sitter's friends stopped by. She apparently lost track of Logan for a couple of minutes, Lewis said, and did not see him wander into the unfenced back yard, which is bordered by the Rexburg City Canal.

The lower temperature of the canal water, cooled by melting snow, likely helped the child survive, Lewis said.

Rarely, children submerged in extremely cold water for long periods of time survive, because the low temperature sends their bodies into a state similar to hibernation. Children are more likely to survive such an event than adults because they require less oxygen.

Logan's condition is still unpredictable, though other children have survived similar circumstances without permanent harm, Lewis said.

He said Logan's parents are on an agonizing roller coaster.

"They went through this devastating experience with the loss of their child, and then all of a sudden it's relief and maybe there is hope. We just hope that everything turns out. We don't want to see them go through that again," he said.

Police routinely investigate the circumstances of any events causing serious injury, Lewis said, and they will do the same in Logan's case.