Mom calls son's water rescue a miracle

SANDPOINT - Matthew Gray's mother calls her son a miracle man.

The Careywood 24-year-old who survived a near drowning at Sandpoint's City Beach Saturday is recovering at his home.

Gray was in critical condition at Kootenai Medical Center after being pulled from the bottom of the swimming area around 11 a.m. Saturday morning and dragged to shore by a passerby, but his condition was upgraded and he was discharged earlier this week.

Gray's mother, Ronnee, said her son was dead when a man dragged him to shore and started performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the victim.

"When he pulled him out, Matt was not breathing and he did not have a pulse," Ronnee Gray said. "He actually had died."

Emergency personnel arrived and Gray was transported to Bonner General Hospital where physicians told Mrs. Gray her son might suffer brain damage from the incident, she said, but she is certain that is not the case.

"He's doing very well," she said. "He's a miracle. There is no sign of brain damage. He's very weak. He's sitting up. He's doing well."

Brian E. Smith, a 53-year-old carpenter from El Sobrante, Calif., was walking along the beach with his wife when he heard a child yelling for help.

"There was no one around," Smith said.

He saw what looked like two boys in the swimming area between the beach and corral of logs that is a breakwater.

One of them was coming to shore.

Smith asked if the boys were messing around.

"He said, no," Smith recalled.

That is when he kicked off his shoes and dove after the man who had bobbed under the surface.

By the time Smith reached the victim, he had sank.

"I dove down and grabbed him," Smith said.

He began the strength-sapping task of pulling a drowned man to shore.

After struggling with Matthew's body, Smith was assisted by a passerby.

"Another guy helped me drag him in," Smith said. "When I got him to shore he was dead.

"He was turning blue, he wasn't breathing. He was gone."

While Smith and Gray's mom, who joined him minutes later, performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR, an unnamed man who told Smith he was a doctor aided the life-saving effort and an emergency medical team arrived, Smith said.

"I was thoroughly exhausted," he said.

Gray's mother said her son was trying to swim when he inhaled water.

"He said he just felt like his body froze," she said. "Once he went under, he couldn't remember anything after that. Everything just went blank."

Police said there is nothing suspicious about the incident and there will be no investigation.

"There is nothing for us to investigate," Sandpoint Police Chief Mark Lockwood said. "There is no indication someone hit him on the head, or held him on the bottom, none of that.

"Our thoughts go out to him and his family."

Ronnee Gray still has questions about the incident.

It happened so suddenly that time seemed to stand still.

"I don't know how long he was under water," she said. "I'm just glad he's alive."

Smith is glad too.

Glad that he once, so long ago, was a Boy Scout who earned merit badges for emergency medical response.

"All that stuff I learned kicked in," he said. "All the stuff about life saving, mouth to mouth bringing the body in, I learned in the Boy Scouts.

"It's amazing."