PUYALLUP, Wash. (AP) — A 12-year-old Washington state boy pulled seemingly lifeless from the Pacific Ocean six weeks ago after being underwater for at least 15 minutes is well enough to go home.
Dale Ostrander of Spanaway, Wash., was released Tuesday, Good Samaritan Hospital spokeswoman Marce Edwards said.
On a blog set up to chronicle his recovery, family members said, “It certainly is wonderful to know that we are leaving the hospital because Dale is well enough to go home.”
In late August, the boy was transferred from a Portland, Ore., hospital to the Pierce County facility closer to his home.
The boy was visiting a southwest Washington beach with a church group in early August when a rip current sucked him out to sea.
“He is not 100 percent Dale” as he was before, his mother, Kirsten Ostrander, told KOMO-TV but she added, “I believe that he will be back and recover fully.
“Being himself, being loving, sweet, goofy sometimes — that’s still there.”
Dale is relearning how to walk and talk and is not yet ready to return to school, KOMO reported. Therapists will continue to help him at home with his speech and concentration.
The boy has said he just wants to get home and pet his dog.
“When they brought him ashore, he had no heartbeat,” his mother said. “He was not breathing.”
“It’s a miracle,” she said of his recovery.
