Kea Rodrigues may be 14 years old, but his mother said Thursday he’s still her “miracle baby.”
Nearly three weeks after he was pulled from frigid waters at Dougan Falls, Rodrigues is walking a bit and talking.
He’s even using the phone to ask for a hamburger and french fries from Burger King, his family, close friends and doctors said at a press conference at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland.
The boy spent more than an hour with his legs trapped under a rock in a pool below the falls on July 9, with dozens of bystanders scrambling to hold his head up for air and free him. At least 10 adults finally freed him by pulling him out with a rope.
His core temperature dropped to 84 degrees, said Legacy Dr. Mark Buchholz, who treated him in intensive care. He was rushed by Life Flight helicopter to Southwest Washington Medical Center before being taken to Legacy Emanuel. He was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation three times.
Today, he’s in rehabilitation and out of the woods, Buchholz said.
“It’s nice to see. He’s the second one in 14 years” out of nearly 75 serious drowning cases to survive, he said.
Being trapped under running water and not fully submerged probably saved Kea’s life, the doctor said. It slowly cooled his body, so that by the time he lost consciousness, his brain wasn’t in need of as much oxygen. Instead, his heart and lungs took the brunt of the damage.
“It’s an incredible outcome, and that’s why we do what we do,” the doctor said, as Kea’s mom, Surena Prom, teared up. “Maybe he’ll go on to college and play football.”
It’s not certain when he’ll get out of the hospital, but Buchholz said Kea will be ready for his first day as a freshman at Wilsonville High School in Wilsonville, Ore. He’s learning to use his fine motor skills, such as writing.
Part of that training included writing a message for the press, which his mother read aloud: “Thank God for giving me another chance. Thanks to everyone who never gave up on me, at the incident and at the hospital.”
Kea went to Dougan Falls on the upper Washougal River that day with two of his teenage friends and two adults, including Heidi Frawley, the mother of Kea’s friend Blake.
Frawley, who leapt into the water and spent more than an hour holding Kea’s head up and giving him rescue breaths as he gasped for air, thought she had lost the boy she held in her arms. He was talkative at first, but after awhile, his skin color changed. The cramps in his muscles loosened.
“I watched his pupils go fixed and dilated,” she said. “I thought he was dead.”
Kea has gone from just another one of the kids who came over to play XBox at her house to a close family friend, she said.
Prom thanked Frawley for her efforts and said, “I do consider her his other mom.”
Kea’s mother said she wasn’t excited to have her son go on the trip that day.
“I said, ‘Hon, are you really a good swimmer?'” Prom said. “And he said, ‘Mom! I surfed in Hawaii.’ In my heart I really didn’t want him to go, but I wanted him to have fun.”
The one message from the family for those taking to the rivers and waterways this summer came from Kea’s stepfather, Charlie Prom: “Be careful.” -Buchholz urged early CPR at the scene.
Prom echoed her son’s gratitude for his second shot.
“Wherever you folks are, thank you so much,” she said. The experience, she said “really gave all of us inspiration and a really different outlook on life.”
The family has set up a fund for Kea Rodrigues at any Wells Fargo bank branch.
Andrea Damewood: 360-735-4542 or andrea.damewood@columbian.com.
