Nearly Frozen Child Escapes Brain Damage

A 3-year-old girl who was found clinically dead in a snowdrift last week will lose part of one toe but appears to have suffered no brain damage, a doctor said Wednesday.

Brittany Eichelberger of Elkins, W. Va., “looks great, certainly neurologically,” said Dr. Pat Kochanek, an intensive care specialist at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

She credited the cold and prompt cardiopulmonary resuscitation with preventing brain damage.

“I think God’s the one who did it,” Brittany’s mother, Melinda Eichelberger, told reporters at the hospital.

The little girl, clad only in underwear, was found stiff and blue Dec. 24, at least 2 1/2 hours after she wandered out of the family’s mobile home in 27-degree weather.

Eichelberger said her daughter has said little about her ordeal. “The only thing she said so far is that she went outside to look for Mom and Dad--she thought we went to work--and then she fell off the porch.”

“She says she’s not going to go outside and play any more.”

Such a complete recovery from severe hypothermia is extremely rare, Kochanek said.

She still has a weakened left arm, probably from the effect of the cold on a main nerve, and a touch of pneumonia, the doctor said.

Brittany was wheeled into the news conference on a child-size bed and whimpered at the sight of lights, cameras and reporters.