I was hesitant to post this story up, but I figured if it can help one other person out there, then it's worth it. This is something I wrote up on my facebook. I'm simply reposting it here:
I've been asked by a few people unfamiliar with the story to give a breakdown on Alex. For those in the Boise area, you may have seen the story on the news about the three-year-old boy that nearly drowned in his neighbor's pool (reported inaccurately by the media, I might add). That was my nephew, Alex.
On Tuesday, July 21st, the family was preparing to go to my wife's Great Grandmother's funeral. Several members of the family were upstairs. Alex's nine-year-old brother, Braiden was in his room, Alex's mother was in the bathroom, and Alex was in front of the TV. As three-year-olds do, he got bored and wandered outside. He kept wandering until he got to the neighbor's backyard gate. The gate is supposed to be latched and locked as it had been done the last time Alex and his family went swimming there (a couple days earlier). Unfortunately, the neighbor's pool is used by many people in the neighborhood, so any number of people have access to it. As a result, someone left it not only unlocked, but unlatched.
Alex wandered into the back yard and ended up fall/jumping into the pool. Shortly after he disappeared, his brother was beckoned to go looking for him. Almost instinctively, Braiden went into the neighbor's backyard, saw his brother laying at the bottom of the pool and without a second thought, he dove in. Keep in mind that this was at the deep-end of the pool (10-feet), and that Braiden is only nine-years-old. He was able to get to his brother, and started to swim up. As he was coming up, he said, "I thought I was going to run out of breath. I heard God speak to me and he told me that he'd give me the breath I needed." What a brave, heroic kid.
Braiden got Alex out of the pool. By this point, Alex was white as a sheet and had blue lips. For all intents and purposes, Alex was dead. Braiden ran back to his house and yelled to his Grandfather to dial 9-1-1, "Alex had drowned". The neighbor across the street heard what Braiden had said and ran to Alex's aid. She began CPR while Braiden's Grandfather dialed 9-1-1. As soon as the 9-1-1 operator indicated that emergency vehicles were on the way, the Grandfather handed the phone off and ran to Alex's aid in the capacity that he overtook CPR duties. The family looked on helplessly until emergency vehicles arrived a couple minutes later.
The fire department and the paramedics worked on Alex for 10-15 minutes until they got a faint pulse. They determined that he was stable enough at that time to transport him to St. Al's (a local hospital). At St. Al's, Alex's heart-rate and blood-pressure improved to the point where they transported him to the pediatric department at St. Luke's (another local hospital) downtown, where he remains today.
His condition, at this point is stable. He's been recently taken off of the respirator and his eyes have opened. The doctors have indicated that he has severe brain-damage and that he'll never be able to speak and/or recognize any of his family members again. While I respect the doctors' diagnoses, I wholeheartedly disagree. Not only have they been basically 100% inaccurate in their assessments thus far, Alex is already starting to focus on things in the room. Beyond that, he'll focus on someone's eyes, and if they move their head, he'll refocus right back on their eyes. Perhaps I'm being naive, but I believe he's making more gainful progress than they're indicating. I have no illusions that he'll never be the same little boy he was, I refuse to believe he'll be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life.
Again, neither the family nor I are looking for sympathy. I'm simply posting this as a reminder of just how dangerous pools can be. Not more than a week after Alex's incident, another two-year-old drowned in a pool here in Boise. Luckily, that boy is expected to make a full recovery.
Hoping for the best, sounds like he's doing good.
The pic of him in the bucket is funny. I mean in a funny haha way not, let me just shut up.
Best wishes and prayers for Alex.
Just read a story of 2 children drowning. 18m and 2yrs. Their first night in the new house with a pool.
Mine is 2yrs old and we have given him swimming lessons but his lack of fear > swimming skill = bad combination with pool and canal. We just put an alarm on the doors just to alert us when he has opened a door. Very scary age. He watches how to unlock the doors and this weekend I saw him push open the stair gate when he got angry. Its like an escalating arms war with us adding more security as he figures out how to get around it. At this age, their strength, speed and lack of fear is scary.
Corvette Store
The story of Alex, my nephew
Hope the doctors are wrong too. Amazing story.
What a great brother!! I'm betting on a full recovery. 
