Family and friends of a local boy are breathing a sigh of relief this week after the young man made a seemingly miraculous recovery after a near death experience.
On Monday, Aug. 18, 14-year-old Joshua Kuykendall collapsed while playing a game with siblings, cousins and family friends. Thanks to the speedy response by his peers and a nearby parent, first responders and other medical professionals were able to save Kuykendall's life.
The young man returned home on Friday, Aug. 22, and is seemingly on the mend after the brush with death. According to the boy's parents, medical professionals have not yet found a cause of the sudden cardiac arrest.
According to Jessica Wohld, the parent who called 911 during the incident, it was clear from the time she saw the boy that he was in trouble.
“I couldn't rouse him. His eyes were just barely open,” Wohld said. “His breathing was not super regular at that point, so I was on the phone with 911 waiting for them to respond, and I was getting ready to start chest compressions, and thought ‘I can't be on the phone and do chest compressions at the same time’ … So I asked if anyone knew how to do chest compressions, and Zander Corwin said ‘I do’”
Alexander Corwin, called Zander by friends and family, is a 14-year-old friend of Kuykendall and his siblings who was at the event. Corwin performed CPR on Kuykendall from before 911 was dialed until first responders arrived — between eight and 10 minutes.
Now, a week after the crisis, Kuykendall has returned home to his family after being deemed stable by hospital staff. Even hospital staff referred to the recovery of the adolescent as a miracle.
The heart-wrenching sequence has since been detailed though the recording of the 911 call and also by Wohld and Corwin as well as Kuykendall’s father, BJ Kuykendall.
The medical crisis occurred during a game day event on Wednesday organized by one of Wohld’s children. At the time, a large group of children gathered at the Wohld property and set out to play a game running through the woods and fields nearby. During the game, the children split up and Kuykendall and his sister, Lucy Kuykendall, were walking through a forested area when the boy seemingly collapsed for no reason. His older brother, Jud Kuykendall, who was nearby, found the two and carried his brother to an open space where Wohld found them after being called over by the group.
According to Corwin, he came to see Kuykendall because he saw his peers gathered in a circle as if someone was hurt. He hurried over with a first aid kit he had brought to the event.
“The day of, I kind of thought someone was going to get hurt. So I had put in my backpack, I put a first aid kit,” Corwin said. “The first thing I grabbed was my first aid kit, and I went over there to see if he had cut himself, or something like that. But he didn't, and he was just unconscious, and so they laid him down … Then Mrs. Wohld came up, and then we checked his pulse and saw he wasn't breathing.”
According to Corwin and his family, he had learned CPR in a class a couple years before, and he volunteered to provide life-saving aid to his friend in the middle of the crisis. The 911 operator checked in throughout the call to make sure that he was keeping the right pace and occasionally guided him and Jessica through checking Kuykendall’s breathing and other vital signs.
As Corwin began CPR, Wohld called 911. According to a recording of the 911 call, the young man took large irregular breaths throughout the crisis, leading the 911 operator to guide Corwin and Wohld through continued assessments of Kuykendall’s condition and advising continued CPR when it was needed. Despite occasional breaths, those present could not feel a steady pulse from Kuykendall.
BJ and his wife, Elaine Kuykendall, both arrived on the scene shortly after the first responders and first saw their son in critical condition.
“We pull up to the house and we see a group of kids just standing silently,” BJ said. “I look over and see paramedics doing CPR on my son. Obviously, as a parent, that;s a pretty intense thing to see … We went over there and just stood and watched and prayed and asked God to show mercy.”
According to BJ, his son's heart was shocked back into rhythm with the use of a defibrillator and he was stabilized as much as possible before being transported to Providence Centralia Hospital. After running tests and failing to find the source of the problem, Kuykendall was transferred, via helicopter, to the intensive care unit at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma.
After arrival, BJ said hospital staff prepared him for the worst, telling him that his son might not wake up and that, if he did, he might have suffered serious brain damage. But roughly a day after the incident, Kuykendall woke up briefly and responded with his name when asked by his parents. It was the first sign of an amazing recovery.
“Tuesday afternoon, Joshua actually woke up, and we asked him what his name was, and he knew his name and recognized me, his dad, and recognized Elaine, his mother,” BJ said.
Over the next few days at the hospital, BJ said his son woke up for longer periods of time, but struggled with short-term memory. He would regularly forget why he was at the hospital and what happened to him after being told by his family. After days of more tests and visits from Corwin and many other family members and friends, Kuykendall was deemed stable enough to return home on Friday, Aug. 22, and over the weekend began to recover some of his short-term memory.
“What was exciting is that Joshua, when he woke up the next morning, he remembered what he had for dinner Friday night,” BJ said.
Upon leaving the hospital, the young Kuykendall was given what hospital staff call a life vest. The vest is capable of shocking his heart back into rhythm if necessary to prevent another crisis. According to BJ, some longer term tests are still being run, but medical professionals have yet to find a source of the medical emergency.
Kuykendall said his son now seems better than they could even have hoped for, with the whole family even able to attend church together on Sunday. He added that the entire experience has made his family more thankful for their large family and their faith.
“We’re so thankful. You can tell he’s been through something this week, but if you look at the kid, if it weren’t for the life vest I don't think you would know what happened,” BJ said. “It’s really obviously an event like this has an impact on your whole family. It's drawn us closer together. The power of prayer and faith in God, it’s really reoriented our priorities.”
BJ and others including Wohld and Corwin’s parents, Laurie and Jeremy Corwin, have since praised the response from the community to the near tragedy. The group of families that remains very close and goes to the same church have called out repeatedly the importance of the response from the community in supporting the family and helping Kuykendall to recover.
“I know scores and scores and scores and scores of people are praying for him. That's the only difference I can come to,” Laurie said. “I looked on Facebook and one of his great aunts posted something, and then I was looking and all these people said they were praying for him, and I didn't recognize one of them.”
