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Subscribe to RSSFrom photojournalist Damian Mulinix. Reposted here with permission:
This is by far the most amazing story I have ever been a part of. I'm still awestruck as I write this, but I am so very happy to be able to tell it.
Damian Mulinix / Chinook Observer
Last Friday afternoon a large church youth group from Spanaway was visiting the beach off the Cranberry Beach approach in Long Beach, WA.
Shannon Kissel and his daughter Nicole were boogie-boarding nearby when they saw two boys were in need of help. While they were able to retrieve one boy, they were not able to rescue Dale Ostrander, who was caught in a rip tide. It was about 10 minutes until the surf rescue team was on scene.
Twenty-plus kids from the youth group sobbed uncontrollably and prayed on the sand during the search, a truly heart-wrenching sound. It was then at least another 15 minutes or so before rescue swimmer Eduardo Mendez spotted Ostrander, and he and swimmer Will Green were able to grab him and pull him aboard a jet ski.
Damian Mulinix / Chinook Observer
Seconds later at the shore, Doug Knutzen carried him up to where paramedics were waiting to treat him. They were on the beach for another 10 minutes trying to revive him. I think it's safe to say that everyone was certain Ostrander was dead. But the crew continued to work on him, and apparently once they got to the hospital they were able to get a weak pulse and get him breathing again.
Ostrander was air-lifted to Portland for treatment. After he was put in an induced coma for a couple days, he woke up.
And today (Aug. 9) they removed his breathing tube. Not only did Ostrander breath on his own, but he spoke complete sentences. Amazing. This boy was dead for upward of 20 minutes, easily.
From the blog prayersfordale.blogspot.com: At 4:11 pm today "The doctors just removed Dale's breathing tube and he is now breathing on his own. Also, because of possible damage to the brain, they were unsure if he would be able to speak. Minutes after the tube was removed, the doctors told him to cough. Not only did Dale talk back to the doctors, he responded in a full sentence saying, “I don't have to.”
Dale continues to get better by the minute, and the doctors are more and more amazed!"
Damian Mulinix / Chinook Observer
Going to these kinds of breaking news situations is often tough, as you never know how they're going to turn out. I was heartbroken for almost a day after this. And to be able to share this kind of news now is just so heart-warming. Please visit the site listed above and follow as Dale recovers miraculously. Because if ever there was a miracle, this would be it.
-DKM
The dramatic rescue of a 12-year-old boy, trapped underwater in the Pacific Ocean for 20 minutes after being pulled to sea by a powerful rip current, was captured by a local photographer. TODAY's Natalie Morales reports.
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God is the energy we share. He created Jesus who manipulated the energy with love. He said you can do everything He did & more. There inlies the way everything is created, with our minds with God. He gives us the free will to choose negative or positive. Live in the negative without knowledge of His love well then you know what happens. Acknowledge His love & wonderful happens as this boy being revived. My partner was saved last year from near drowning. I couldnt get out of the innertube in the river to get to her. She was under water & I didnt even know where she was. I yelled God help me now & I was standing up out of the innertube. It just tipped me out. I still dont know how I found her because she was on the oppisite side of the river & I had been sliding around all day on slippery rocks on the bottom of the river, unable to stand, yet alone walk . So somehow I made it across the river to where she was & to this day I dont remember crossing it. It was as if I woke up right where she was & she was under the water with her arms out in front of her like superman flying ,her eyes wide open. I thought she was dead. I reached down & grabbed her tshirt & pulled her up & later she said she was talking to God while under the water & thought she was done for, she couldnt stand up because of the slippery rocks. She had gone over a small rapids in a innertube & had been thrown out & I never saw her again & didnt know where she was under the water so I"woke" up to that spot. It was very murky except that spot. She said she was fighting & trying to stand up & heard a voice tell her to stop fighting & when she did she was almost ready to take in water & when I pulled on her tshirt she thought it was God pulling her spirit from her. All praise to God. She had been struggling with giving it up to God before this incident so she needed to get dunked we jokingly say now. We read Conversations with God by Neale Walsch about 8 months before this happened. It woke me up to God. Its a great book for nonbelievers. I have NEVER felt so free & peaceful knowing that God is nonjudgmental as most religions have you believe to control you. He loves you & never punishes. We do it to ourselves believing we must be punished. Its awesome. My life has completely changed since I read this. The Bible says this too but you have to know how to interpret it. I see it now in the Bible. Joel Osteen is wonderful to listen to, I dont believe there is a devil but just ego which stands for edging God out. We let ego take over & horrible things happen. Stay connected to God & wonderful happens. Love, Maggie
Off topic but here goes... this is the one of the most poorly designed sites I have ever seen. The newer and older tabs on the left and right make it virtually unreadable. The horizontal text config forces one to resize the screen resolution to an almost impossible size. Do you idiots here on PMSNBC even proof read your own sites? Horrible!
By the way, I was tricked into registering for PMSNBC via my comment. By clicking on my email validation I had to sign up with a pw to get my above comment posted. Pretty sleazy you guys.
Wow, amazing that God made the body to be able to do that (survivor mode) and that he saved this boy's life. Praise the Lord!
God is so good!!! This is a wonderful story!! Miracle that he was found and is making an amazing progress!! God had His hand on the Search Team and on each of the paramedics and He has guided each doctor. Prayer is a wonderful thing and I am so thankful he was found and making progress!! My prayers are still with each family member, each doctor and most importantly Dale. Everyone is right by saying that the rescuers are the ones who found him, but who do you think had their hands on them?! Thank you Lord, for saving him!!
It's strange that there are so many comments saying that prayer has nothing to do with this and that the "real hero's" are the "men/women" who rescued this boy. God has spoken, in several scriptural examples, that while He has chosen some to "do" certain acts, (the rescuers) He instructs all to pray for those that are doing. So praise God for those that did and praise God for those that prayed!
For all things are from him, through him and to him. God ordains the means and the end. God saved the boy so did the rescue workers.
i am not a blogger but this is such a cool conflict between those who know that god saved the kid, and those that point out if there was a god he also swept the kid out to sea. maybe god was in a bad mood when he swept the kid out to sea, and then felt bad and stepped in to save him. or maybe there are two gods; a bad on and a good one.
note to church youth groups: don't pray on the beach with your eyes closed for god to keep an eye on an unsupervised 12 year old who doesn't know how to swim wading in waste deep breakers. keep an eye on him yourself. better yet, get on that boogie board and go out and look for the kid yourself.
I praise God for Dales deliverance out of the clutches of death, God the only true and living God who has dominion over all things heard the prayers and cries of Dales friends and answered them. It is a beautiful, wonder and glorious miracle!!!!
Bravo Kid I hope you live to be a 100. Bravo to everybody that rescued him and prayed for him.Bravo!
It's not a miracle, I don't see a God saving this boy, I see two brave men in the photo and I know a very brave girl swam to try to save a boy that she didn't know. While a very young lady was risking her life, adults were praying instead of help him....
Almost everyone has heard of a boy drowning in cold water—then, after half an hour of submersion, being resuscitated with no ill effects and no brain damage. The Canadian Medical Association Journal documented such a drowning: After half an hour of complete submersion, a boy was rescued from the icy waters where he fell.3 He was resuscitated and, with proper medical treatment, had no lasting side effects. There was no cerebral damage, although his brain received no oxygen for over half an hour.
Research has provided additional case study after case study of extended cold water submersion with no brain damage to resuscitated victims. Article after article, story after story, of people deprived of oxygen for up to an hour—with no ill effects or brain damage. What is it that protects the brain from damage in cases of oxygen deprivation over the four-minute limit? And can this be applied as a lifesaving technique to heart attack victims?
In all vertebrates, there is an automatic reflex called the Mammalian Diving Reflex. It occurs naturally as a life-preserving mechanism during cold water submersion. More commonly called the “Diving Reflex,” it is a protective oxygen-conserving reflex to keep brain and body alive during submergence and possible drowning in cold water. The body prepares itself to sustain life. It is a totally natural protective mechanism serving Homo sapiens, originating from hundreds of thousands of years of evolvement.
Natural engagement of the diving reflex is what has enabled drowning victims to be revived successfully after cold water submersion for as long as an hour, with few or no ill effects. The Technique seeks to trigger this reflex in a crisis. The Technique may never replace CPR. The purpose of this article is not to compete with CPR, but to help sustain the life of the hundreds of thousands of victims of heart attacks or suffocation, thrust into a life-and-death situation, who may not be near people trained in CPR.
How did they ever catch sight of him with the dark blue clothing he was wearing? ...yes, I believe in miracles.