CATCH-A-KID!
Almelund girl saves brother from suffocation
By Aaron Vehling
ECM Post Review
After a dismaying period of rain, Lisa Otto and her children, Marjory, 11, and Charles, 9, were out in their backyard in rural Almelund the afternoon of June 8 taking advantage of a sunny break from precipitation.
Lisa was tending to the family dog who had broken her collar bone recently while Marjory and Charles were less than 100 feet away from her playing in a fort they built out of a small, long-since-expired gravel pit.
Marjory and Charles, right
Suddenly Lisa heard a loud, terrifying scream coming from her daughter.
As Charles was digging, a one-foot deep by four-feet wide area of sand, responding to a steady barrage of rain, collapsed and buried him. Lisa said only a small tuft of his hair was sticking out of the sand.
Marjory, in shock, acted quickly to save her brother from suffocation. She pulled her brother far enough out of the sand so she could clean his mouth and open his airways up to breathing.
“It’s hard to explain how scared I was,” Marjory told the Post Review in an interview Friday afternoon (June 10) at the Otto’s farm.
Marjory then ran across the yard to retrieve a shovel, which she and her mother used to get Charles’ legs and arms out of the ground. She also called 911 and soon sheriff’s deputies, the Almelund Fire Department and Lakes Region EMS showed up. Charles’ nose, mouth, ears and eye lids were covered in sand.
Charles complained of back pain and was whisked off to Fairview Lakes Hospital in Wyoming – requesting that his sister, and not his mother, accompany him in the ambulance. “They are really close,” said Lisa about her children. “They are always together.”
Almelund Fire Chief Marty Johnson said in a phone interview Monday that Charles had the wind knocked out of him from the weight of the sand.
He commended Marjory for her heroics.
“It could have been tragic,” he said. “It was so amazing... she did everything right.”
Both Johnson and Lisa said the situation would have been much worse if Marjory hadn’t secured an airway for her brother.
Charles spent less than an hour at the hospital before doctors determined his condition stable.
“It was scary,” he told the Post Review regarding his temporary burial. “I felt like I was going to die.”
Lisa said her family is very safety conscious.
The gravel pit has been out of use since the family moved to the farm about 10 years ago and has since grown over with various types of vegetation. It has proven to have stable ground and had not caused any problems in the past.
Lisa wanted to warn parents about expired pits and their capricious nature. Lisa and her husband, Dan, are going to bevel the area and make other safety adjustments before allowing their children to return to play in the area.
Lisa also wanted to share her story to illustrate the ability of children to help one another.
“Kids can make a huge difference when they need to,” she said.
She is very proud of her daughter.
“She’s a smart girl,” Lisa said. “It could have been an awful accident. She did stuff half the adults I know wouldn’t do.”
Marjory was in shock during the whole thing, Lisa said. Her daughter’s feet were cut and bruised because she lost her shoes in the same sand that buried her brother. She conducted her entire rescue mission without any covering for her feet.
Johnson said Marjory will be honored by the Amador town board at 8 p.m. Tuesday at the town hall in Almelund.
“She didn’t freeze up,” Johnson said about Marjory. “She just went for it and saved her little brother.”
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The Catch-a-Kid program is a community-building and fund-raising activity of Youth Service Bureau, 244 N Lake Street, Forest Lake MN 55025.