Two months after a scary incident in her family's backyard pool, 20-month-old Olive Lahey is finally able to breathe on her own again. The development is a stark improvement since the incident, when Olive was discovered at the bottom of the pool.
The incident happened around 4 p.m. June 11.
According to a GoFundMe page created back in June by her mother, Tamara Lahey, Olive broke past the pool gate "for an unsupervised swim, unnoticed. She was always so brave and a water baby at heart," Lahey wrote.
Lahey had sent Olive and her older sister, Scarlett, outside to water some plants.
"It was their usual chore that they enjoyed doing together," she wrote. Meanwhile, the mom was inside preparing beets and sweet potatoes for dinner. She could see the girls through the kitchen window. "They were fine. Maybe wasting some water but they were smiling so it was worth it," she explained.
Scarlett was giving Olive's stuffed raccoon a shower with the hose and, although she can't know for sure when things changed, Lahey admitted she did turn away from the window for a moment to wash her hands and put the peels from the vegetables in the compost container.
"I didn't notice she went to the pool gate. I still heard the water running and didn't look outside. I thought everything was fine," she recalled.
What she didn't realize was that the latch on the fence around the pool was faulty.
It had appeared to be closed when she looked before sending the girls outside to play.
"I know how dangerous pools are and have always checked it. I just got used to it always being secure when I went out there," she wrote.
"I felt like I was being maybe a little paranoid always doing that," she added. "What were the chances that this time when I didn't check it, it was not 100% secure?"
Soon her husband came into the room and noticed that the water from the hose was still running outside.
Thinking nothing of it, Lahey went back to cooking — "then I heard a scream from the pool area. My heart stopped."
Speaking with ABC 13, Lahey said her husband's "first instinct was to go out to the pool, and he noticed the gate wasn't fully closed."
"Then, he saw her submerged in the deep end," she said. She believed that Olive was underwater for anywhere between four and six minutes.
He pulled Olive from the water and ran with her body back into the house.
They made space for Olive, and Lahey's husband started CPR.
"He started chest compressions and breathing," she recalled on the GoFundMe page. "Foam was coming out of her nose and mouth. Her eyes were rolled up. I called 911 and got the EpiPen. The injections were not enough to start her heart."
When paramedics arrived they gave her another shot.
"Her heart started beating faintly halfway to the hospital, but she still was not breathing," Lahey wrote.
At the hospital, the parents learned that Olive was suffering from significant brain damage to her basal ganglia.
Her doctors kept her room freezing "to induce hypothermia for helping her brain inflammation."
Olive's basil ganglia, the "coordinator of the brain which relays signals from the other areas," was effected, but her "hippocampus and higher level thinking were undamaged."
"That means she is trapped in there!" Lahey explained. "She is without the ability to focus her eyes, move her body purposely, or express herself. I see her suffering in small silent tears dripping from her eyes as they roll back into her head. I can't let my baby live like that! Please help me break her free by healing her brain."
Now, two months later, Olive is on the mend.
After her daughter spent 60 days in the neonatal intensive care unit, Lahey told ABC 13 that Olie is finally breathing "100 percent on her own again." The mom added that as long as Olive keeps breathing, she'll keep hope alive that things will be OK.
"I wish so bad I could go back in time and beat on that gate to make sure it was shut or skip making dinner and just be with my precious little ones," she wrote on the GoFundMe page, which has since raised more than $66,000.
"I am beating myself up over all the things I could have done! Why didn't my mommy instincts let me know that something was wrong? I took safety for granted and I feel like I have lost my baby forever," she added.
Lahey urges other parents not to take the time they have with their kids for granted.
"I would do anything to have the life we had back with the boring routines," she said. "I wouldn't get annoyed at changing 10 poopy diapers a day or listening to the whining from teething pains."
But mostly she's sharing her story so that what happened to Olive won't happen to anybody else.
"Please check your pool gates," she begged. "Keep your babies safe around water!"
