Boy who survived riptide submersion still improving

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The news just keeps getting better for 12-year-old Dale Ostrander, whose survival after spending at least 15 minutes submerged in high surf off a Washington beach has stunned his family, not to mention some of the experts who say he’s not supposed to be alive.

Already out of the intensive care unit and with his condition upgraded to ‘fair,’ the Spanaway, Wash., boy kissed his mom for the first time, coughed, and wiped his face with a tissue, the family reports on their blog.

A breathing tube was removed earlier, though he’s still being fed through a feeding tube, and doctors were expected to report soon on the results of an MRI, which could show how much damage his brain sustained during the dramatic ordeal.

This has been a story where there have been more than enough heroes to go around--not the least 12-year-old Nicole Kissel, who was visiting from Merced, Calif., when she heard Ostrander call for help in the middle of a riptide. Kissel held on to the boy on her boogie board, but both of them were ripped off it by another crashing wave, leaving Ostrander, who couldn’t swim, submerged until rescue swimmers arrived about 10 minutes later.

It took them an additional 15 minutes to find Ostrander and pull him aboard a jet ski, witnesses said.

‘I actually said out loud, ‘I’m going to die and I have so much more to do, and so does he,’’ Kissel said at a news conference at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, where Ostrander is recovering.

Before meeting with reporters, Kissel visited Ostrander’s hospital room. ‘Thank you,’ he managed to say.

The trouble began during a church outing Aug. 5 at the beach near Long Beach, Wash. Ostrander, fully clothed, was standing in about a foot of water when a large wave knocked him over, and a riptide pulled him out to sea. He was not breathing and had no pulse when he was pulled to shore, though after performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation for about 10 minutes, rescuers were able to get a weak pulse and restore his breathing.

After being in an induced coma over the weekend, Ostrander woke up and began speaking--a little. Until the results of the MRI are in, doctors will not know how much long-term brain damage he has sustained.

Physicians said the cold temperature of the water and the boy’s relatively young age, along with the quick performance of CPR, helped him survive.

‘This is by far the most amazing story I have ever been a part of. I’m still awestruck as I write this,’ Damian Mulinix, a journalist for the Chinook Observer who captured dramatic photographs of the rescue, wrote on his blog.

‘He’s lucky just to be here,’ the boy’s father, Chad Ostrander, told reporters.

--Kim Murphy