Stratford Drags Dad Down To Dam, He’s Paralyzed With Fear When He Sees What’s Floating

by waggingtonpost on in DOGS 29

David Kenney and his family were visiting friends in Australia, when their Staffordshire bull terrier, Leala, came running to the house soaked.

The dog barked and seemed frantic. David followed her around until she took him to a nearby dam.

When they arrived, David saw something that made his bones shiver. He saw his two-year-old son, Alexander, floating facedown in the dam.

David stated, “It was what I wished not to see. It was a mixture of disbelief, horror, and sadness, it was indescribable really, but then everything was a blur.”

David along with his friends, Jason and Joshua Cluff, drug Alexander out of the water. They performed CPR on him for 27 minutes until help arrived. The medics were able to restart his heart, but it was uncertain if he would live.

Alexander’s mother, Lisa Brockband, was driving back to her house when she saw an ambulance race past her. This made her curious about what was happening, but she would have never thought they were going to rescue her own son.

She recalled, “I didn’t think it was my kid. I didn’t think it had anything to do with us, and then I came to see a helicopter in the sky and the whole place was just alive with police and ambulances and my son was just lying there completely comatose.”

Members of the Westpac Rescue helicopter team broke the news to Lisa.

“They pulled me aside and told me this is as bad as it gets, there’s not a lot of hope, you should prepare for the worst possible outcome,” Lisa said.

With his life at stake, the medics airlifted him to Brisbane’s Lady Cilento Hospital. The doctors put him into an induced coma and admitted him to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

“The doctors said, ‘Be prepared, you may not be taking this boy home, and if you do take him home he’ll probably have some brain damage,” Lisa recalled, “From a parent’s point of view, it doesn’t get much worse.”

Alexander beats the odds. He surprised the whole staff and his parents with his recovery. His recovery was a miracle. After only 48 hours, the doctors took Alexander out of the coma. Shortly after that, he was able to breathe on his own.

The boy’s speedy recovery wowed all of the doctors. They gave the credit to his dad’s immediate performance of CPR, which allowed for oxygen to get to his brain.

David knows who the real hero was- Leala. If it was not for Leala, David would have found his son dead. The family will forever be grateful for their lifesaving pup.

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