COSTA MESA : Boy Stung by Scorpion in Mexico Recovering

The parents of a 13-month-old Costa Mesa boy who nearly died of a scorpion sting in Mexico last weekend said he is recovering quickly.

“The little guy is a miracle story,” Diane Bjella said on Tuesday, a day after her son, Anders, was flown by an ambulance jet from Puerto Vallarta to Children’s Hospital in San Diego.

“He’s breathing on his own. The brain looks good,” she said from the hospital. “Everything’s being monitored closely.”

Anders apparently was stung by a scorpion that crawled into his shoe Sunday afternoon, as the Bjellas got ready for a restaurant outing in Puerto Vallarta, where they were vacationing.

Bjella said she and her husband, Ross, had been “casually warned” about scorpions but did not check the boy’s shoes before dressing him.

“He jumped off the bed and took a few steps and yelped,” she said. “We thought he hit his mouth, and he’s getting new teeth.”

But during the two-hour walk to town, she said, the boy cried uncontrollably and began frothing at the mouth. They rushed back to their villa, where “Ross took his shoe off and the scorpion crawled out.”

She said they took Anders to two hospitals, where half a dozen doctors had the same bad news: There was little they could do. The boy’s temperature hit 104 degrees, his lips turned purple and he stopped breathing at times.

“We were sure we were going to lose him,” she said.

An emergency-room doctor suggested calling the San Diego-based air ambulance and, 17 hours after he was stung, Anders was flown early Monday morning to Children’s Hospital.

Diane Bjella, who is five months’ pregnant with her second child, said: “He’s on his way to recovery. I think we’re going to have a very good Christmas.”