MADISON TOWNSHIP, Ohio – A toddler is in intensive care after he came close to drowning in the bathtub Thursday.
The boy seemed to be having trouble with the heat during the day. A family member put him in the bathtub to cool off. Something went wrong.
The 911 call from the Catalina mobile home park was one of desperation.
“I got a 3-year-old grandson who is not breathing right now,” the caller told dispatchers. “He’s been having problems all day with fever.”
As a family member performed chest compressions on the child, neighbor Deza’Rae Feldt heard the family’s cries from down the way. She went over to help out with CPR.
“I walked into the house and I saw the boy laying on the floor and it looked like his parents were getting a lot of water out of his lungs, and I went in and was holding his head, tilted it kind of back, so the water could get out of his chest and his lungs,” Feldt said.
Feldt had no formal training, but went to work as best she knew how.
“I’ve never actually performed CPR until yesterday,” she said.
Feldt said she desperately hopes the boy will pull through.
“When I was doing it there was a lot of water coming out of his mouth and it started to stream out of his nose, and then he acted like he wanted to take a breath but he just couldn’t,” she said. “I was going and he was still holding, he wasn’t there at the light yet and I’m hoping he’s OK.”
The Butler County Sheriff’s Office said there has been no change in the boy’s condition. There was no word if there would be any charges filed in the incident.
