A Christmas miracle

A sense of calm surrounded Jenae Howey and her 2-year-old daughter, Lillian Howey, on a recent Saturday afternoon at their Lewiston Orchards home.

Jenae sat on a couch watching Lillian methodically place toy plastic coins into a pink piggy bank, an activity Lillian had started without prompting.

Soon Lillian would walk over to the top of the stairs of the split level home to greet her dad, Brenton Howey, and her two older siblings, Abraham, 8, and Ella, 5, as they arrived home.

The peaceful atmosphere in the Howeys’ tidy living room stood in dramatic contrast to the emergency that had unfolded in the same room just 4½ weeks earlier on Christmas Day.

Lillian came dangerously close to taking her last breath after choking on a carrot. The accident was so severe physicians continued to fear for her life even after Lillian arrived at Seattle Children’s Hospital where she stayed for almost two weeks.

Lillian’s recovery is progressing ahead of schedule, a miracle the family, who belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, credits to divine intervention and the outstanding care Lillian received at every step of the way, Jenae said.

“So many people of different faiths reached out and were praying for her,” Jenae said. “I honestly believe it was so many miracles. The doctors were like, ‘This is not normal. This is a miracle.’ I know it was from Heavenly Father saving her.”

The paramedics and firefighters who responded to the call share the Howeys’ relief for how well Lillian is doing, said Richie Lucas, Lewiston’s deputy fire chief.

Every call presents its unique set of challenges, Lucas said, but this one was particularly difficult because of how close his family is with the Howeys.

His daughter babysits the Howeys’ children. His son and the Howeys’ kids are part of a large group of neighborhood children who play outside together.

“The Howeys are great people,” Lucas said. “They’re family-oriented. They’re always willing to help. Their children are happy all the time. It seems like they do a really good job parenting.”

Before Lillian began choking, Christmas was unfolding normally for the Howeys and Lucases. Jenae and Lucas were both assembling Christmas presents for their sons in their basements. In Jenae’s case, it was a basketball hoop for her son’s bedroom door. Lucas was attaching handlebars to a motorized scooter.

At the Howeys’ home, Ella and Lillian were upstairs playing while Brenton prepared a turkey. The Howeys planned to have a big dinner that afternoon with extended family.

Lucas wasn’t scheduled to work, but he had put on his uniform and was monitoring emergency calls. He had been alerted that crews were spread thin and wanted to be prepared to step in if needed.

He didn’t know anything was wrong at his neighbor’s house until Brenton began pounding on his front door. The Howeys had already called 911 and Brenton was talking to emergency dispatchers.

A registered nurse, Jenae had removed any carrot pieces she could reach from Lillian’s mouth, Lucas said.

“Jenae was at the front door and she had Lillian in her arms and Lillian was just limp,” Lucas said.

Lillian was making motions trying to breathe, but no air was reaching her lungs, he said.

“She was just purple and blue all the way to her finger tips,” Lucas said.

Complicating the situation was that, at 2-years-old, Lillian was too young for the Heimlich maneuver, he said.

“You do what are called chest thrusts and back blows,” Lucas said. “I went back and forth until she became completely limp.”

Lillian’s dad laid Lillian on a blanket in the yard and Lucas started CPR while an ambulance sped to the house.

As soon as the paramedics arrived, including Michael Henrie, they gave Lucas a tool that allowed him to look down Lillian’s throat. Even as Lucas suctioned away blood and secretions while Jared Miesen, an emergency medical technician, drove Lillian to the hospital in an ambulance, Lucas couldn’t identify what was blocking her airway.

Lucas kept looking while Ryan Rhodes, a paramedic, and Ross Freeden, an emergency medical technician, continued CPR and chest compressions, started an IV and monitored her vital signs.

It was after he started giving Lillian oxygen that he felt something shift in her airway. He looked into Lillian’s throat again, finding and removing a small cylinder-shaped piece of carrot about the size of the top part of an adult pinkie finger. Its diameter roughly matched that of Lillian’s throat.

“I called her dad on speaker while we were still driving to the hospital,” Lucas said. “She was stabilizing. Her skin color turned back to pink. Until the carrot came out, she was still blue.”

The St. Joseph Regional Medical Center emergency room staff quickly determined Lillian needed care not available in the region, Lucas said.

“She was actively looking around, but (with a stethoscope) you could still hear all of this stuff rattling around in her lungs,” he said.

Normally, a Life Flight crew could have flown Lillian from the hospital to Seattle in a helicopter, but the cloud cover was so thick that day that planes weren’t flying from Lewiston.

They had to get Lillian to the Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport. Lucas decided he and Chris Cook, a firefighter already on duty, would take Lillian and the Life Flight crew to Pullman.

Back at the Howeys’ house, Erik Kelly, a paramedic, made sure Jenae, seven months pregnant, was OK. Brenton, who works at CCI/Speer, and Jenae quickly divided up tasks.

Jenae would stay with Lillian. Brenton would leave Abraham and Ella with Jenae’s brother and her brother’s wife in Othello, then continue on to Seattle. The Lucas family would watch the Howeys’ dog.

Lucas’ wife, Christel Lucas, took Jenae to St. Joe’s.

Before they even arrived at Seattle Children’s Hospital, the gravity of Lillian’s situation reemerged. Just before they departed from Pullman, Lillian stopped breathing again. The Life Flight crew, Jenae said, asked her to leave the aircraft while Lillian received CPR for the second time that day.

“I thought I was going to lose her,” Jenae said. “I just bawled.”

Lillian rallied, but tough days laid in front of her. At the Seattle hospital, physicians performed a procedure called a bronchoscopy to clear her lungs, Jenae said.

They put Lillian on life support because doctors thought that was the only way she could be strong enough to survive the procedure. One of the biggest pieces of carrot they pulled from Lillian’s lungs had been flapping back and forth, helping Lillian have enough breath to hang on, she said.

Afterward, Lillian remained on life support for two or three days.

“They wanted to let her lungs rest,” Jenae said. “They wanted to let her body heal.”

As Lillian’s condition improved, doctors took her off life support and a ventilator.

“When they took the tube out, she had reached for me, so I knew that she was OK,” Jenae said.

But soon more complications surfaced. Lillian began blinking rapidly, developed a fever and started shaking as her muscles stiffened. It seemed as if Lillian wasn’t really there, even though she was breathing, Jenae said.

“She didn’t recognize who I was or who anybody was,” she said.

Numerous tests came back negative.

“We were crying,” Jenae said. “We didn’t know what our options were.”

Somehow Lillian improved. Physicians felt they could discontinue cold rags and fans they had been using to keep Lillian’s temperature down. Once she was stable enough to leave intensive care and go to a regular floor of the hospital, she slept through the night.

“And she woke up and it was like she had come back to us,” Jenae said. “After that big, long sleep we were just hoping and praying (a lack of sleep) was her biggest issue.”

Lillian’s progress accelerated. She was too weak to hold up her head, but she was reaching for Jenae, smiling and giggling.

By then it was Jan. 2. More than a week had passed since the carrot was lodged in her throat. The care shifted to helping Lillian relearn basic tasks like sitting up, walking and holding objects.

When the staff left for the weekend, Lillian, Brenton and Jenae kept working. Lillian practiced walking between her parents.

Jenae made Play Doh balls. Lillian would grab them and put them in containers. She played with a plastic piggy bank and coins that were identical to the ones she had at home.

They let Lillian nap whenever she needed, but as soon as she awakened, she wanted to keep working, Jenae said.

It was clear that Lillian understood that she was relearning things she had mastered just months ago, something that frustrated her, and that she wanted to progress as quickly as possible, Jenae said.

“When she was able to walk and (do other activities) again, she was much happier,” Jenae said.

The Howeys returned home the week of Jan. 6, much earlier than physicians had expected.

Lillian is back to normal mostly. The Howeys cut everything she eats into small pieces and she doesn’t consume raw food, Jenae said.

In upcoming weeks, months and years, Lillian will have frequent visits with professionals like doctors and occupational therapists to monitor her progress and intervene if anything doesn’t seem to be going right, Jenae said.

“So far, she seems like her old self again,” she said.

What Lillian and the family went through, Jenae said, has given them a renewed appreciation for people’s kindness and generosity.

Similarly, the emergency crew members who helped Lillian continue to track and celebrate Lillian’s progress. They stopped by one day after Lillian was back home with presents and food, partly to give the Howeys and Lucases a chance to get back the large part of Christmas they missed.

“Miracles still happen today,” Jenae said. “People we’ve never talked to were so willing and concerned for her. It was just amazing to me just to see that people cared that much. We really do have a good community here.”

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.