For young Oklahoma patient, an H1N1 ‘miracle’

The 8-year-old lay flat in her pale blue hospital gown. More than two months earlier, her school called Aug. 28 to say the child had a fever and couldn’t breathe. She was rushed by ambulance to the hospital to battle swine flu, complicated by asthma. It had finally come down to this moment.

Leteasha’s mother prayed next to her daughter, while other family members prayed and watched the child through the hospital room window. Leteasha’s uncle held up Leteasha’s grandmother as the child’s tubes were detached. "Hold on, Mama, hold on,” he said.

Suddenly her grandmother, Carolyn Williams, began calling out, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”

Doctors eased out the last line that typically precedes the declaration of time of death.

"As they were unhooking her, her vital signs started going down,” Williams said. "All of a sudden, they started rising back up.”

Doctors were amazed and told the family to keep on doing whatever they were doing. Leteasha was living without the machines.

"God has spared her life. It was a miracle. Everybody in the hospital had to come and look at her, saying what an amazing child that she pulled through this,” Williams said. "Because they knew she was a goner. But my God said different.

"He stepped in on time. My grandbaby still lives, and I thank him every day.”

She already has been through three weeks of rehabilitation at the nonprofit pediatric hospital.

A few days before Thanksgiving, Leteasha still looked worn out despite her bright pink top, print shorts and the blue nail polish she’d carefully applied the day before.

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