SIMI VALLEY : Boy’s Survival a Miracle, Say Doctors, Family

First the doctors thought that 4-year-old Joshua Smith would die.

Then they told his parents he would have serious brain damage.

But on Friday, six days after he was pulled unconscious and slightly blue from the bottom of a Simi Valley neighbor’s pool, Joshua is back home, smiling and playing with his brothers while he awaits physical therapy.

The accident happened when Joshua, who was playing with his brothers and friends in a pool owned by neighbor James Neal, apparently went back into the pool after the other boys had gotten out and Neal went inside to answer a doorbell. When Neal came back out a few minutes later, he could not find Joshua.

Because there was sediment in the pool, the boys did not see Joshua. After a brief search around the house and yard, Neal jumped into the pool and found Joshua near the drain in the deep end.

Joshua’s parents say his recovery is a miracle.

“When we first saw him laying there,” said Joseph Smith, Joshua’s father, “he wasn’t breathing and we could see water coming out of his mouth and all--he was under water for a while--and all we could do was start praying. I was scared, but we have a strong faith in God, and that’s who we put our hope into.”

For a few hours, the family did not know if Joshua would survive, and it took several hours before he began breathing on his own, his father said.

Joshua’s 11-year-old brother, Joe Jr., said he was sitting in the waiting room next to his mother and two other younger brothers when the doctors told his father that Joshua was breathing.

“You could hear him yell from the hallway, ‘Yes!’,” Joe said.

Joshua was taken by helicopter to Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Los Angeles, where he was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit.

Despite the temporary ray of hope when he started breathing again, Joshua fell into a deep coma and doctors told his parents that he would probably die.

“When we went down there, I was calm,” said Marnice Smith, Joshua’s mother. “I had been in deep prayer and I felt that God was with him. The social worker thought something was wrong because I was so calm, but I just knew God was with him every step of the way.”

The boy woke up two days later, and although he could not speak and lacked coordination, his mother said Joshua recognized her, smiled at his family and tried to sing songs from the Barney television show.

“The diction was not all there, but he sang all the parts,” she said.

Joshua came home Thursday night. He has trouble walking and standing on his own, and will be readmitted to Kaiser Hospital on Monday for physical therapy.

His mother plans to taking time off from her sales job with North American Van Lines to stay with him in the Los Angeles hospital, and his grandmother flew out from Chicago on Friday afternoon to take care of Joshua’s three brothers.

Members of El Shaddai Christian Center in Simi Valley, where the family attends church, continue to pray for the boy and offer their help to the family, Joshua’s mother said.

The doctors, who were impressed enough to call his recovery from near-death a miracle, have told the family not to expect that he would come back to his old self, but the family remains optimistic.

“You can already tell he’s determined to get back to normal when he tries to play with his brothers,” his mother said. “It’s truly a miracle, and I know the Lord is not going to forsake this boy.”