Young hero saves little brother
Published: March 2, 2007
Ten-year-old Chance McPhie is normally a sound sleeper, the kind who continues dreaming after his mother has flipped on the lights and begun vacuuming.
But on Jan. 24, something woke Chance out of a deep sleep. It helped Chance to save the life of his younger brother, Adam.
Today Adam is as healthy, vibrant and active as any 6-year-old - a factor that has brought the entire family a great deal of relief as reflecting on the details of that night are anything but pleasant.
“I thought I was going to die,” said Adam from the family’s Winchester Hills home Wednesday morning.
And while Adam feels “wonderful” that his brother Chance, or CJ, saved him, when Chance recalls the night, his expression turns immediately somber.
“I was scared,” Chance said.
“I try not to think about it. It makes my heart sink down to my feet,” said Debbie, Adam’s mother. Adam had been sick for about a week, but after an appointment at a local health care facility left no definitive diagnosis for Adam’s ailment, the family continued caring for his coughing and fever.
At around 1:30 a.m., Chance ran down the hall, waking the family, yelling “Adam can’t breathe!”
Debbie ran into the room but couldn’t reach Adam, who was sitting still on the top bunk with his arms crossed over his chest, his hands resting on his throat. Debbie’s father, Heber Nelson, reached Adam and pulled him from the bunk bed.
“When I got into the bedroom, he couldn’t move. He was limp,” said Nelson.
When the family called 911, they were told to take Adam outside where cold air could stimulate his lungs to open his passageway, but Debbie and her father already had him outside. While, at the time, the family didn’t know it was croup affecting Adam, Nelson defaulted to his own past experience with Debbie when she had croup as a child.
“It was all he could do to get a breath,” said Nelson.
Debbie remembers her son’s poignant comment to the emergency responder when the ambulance arrived and began treating him.
“He told the man who gave him his IV, ‘I don’t want to die,’” said Debbie.
Still, the impact of the night’s events didn’t really hit Debbie until later when she was shown the signs of Adam’s touch-and-go experience: a red, rashlike discoloration that later appeared around his eyes.
“It was so fast, it didn’t really hit me till the doctor showed me the rash and told me that in one more minute, if someone didn’t find him, we would have been planning a funeral,” said McPhie, who describes CJ as “sensitive” and “aware” and Adam as “personable” and the family “icebreaker.”
The connection the brothers share as they play and communicate is evident.
“These two, I never have sibling problems with,” said Debbie.
In fact, the first thing on Adam’s mind when he got back from the doctor’s office was Chance.
“He wanted to find his brother,” said Nelson.
Once Adam returned home, the family initially kept a close watch on him.
“For the first week after, he slept in my bed. I was just paranoid,” said Debbie.
But the breathing treatments and antibiotics he still continues have significantly improved his health. Adam’s current health is evident by his energy, exuberance for life, broad smile and endearing antics.
While the events that transpired in January still baffle the family, all seem to agree on the one thing they believe may have stirred CJ that night.
“CJ’s a very sound sleeper and for him to wake up and hear (Adam) gasping for air is pretty weird,” said Debbie. “I think that CJ’s very sensitive and very in tune. He was in tune to the spirit and it prompted him to wake up,” she said.
“It scared me so bad,” said Diane Nelson, McPhie’s mother. “We are just so lucky. It had to be inspired for CJ, of all the people in the house, to wake up,” she said.
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