Toddler survives falling into septic tank
A neighbor pulls the boy from the sludge-filled hole. A family friend resuscitates him.
By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
Published February 18, 2005
RIVERVIEW - The 5-year-old twins knew something was wrong when the earth swallowed the baby.
The adults knew something was wrong when the twins started screaming.
Two-year-old Isiaha Gatwood had stepped into the opening to a septic tank, dropping into 4 feet of effluent.
"He was walking across the yard and he just disappeared," said James Scofield, 42, who was outside clearing tree limbs for Isiaha's neighbor.
Scofield stays with Isiaha's parents, who weren't home. He and the neighbor, Perry Portee, ran to the back yard of Portee's home on Branwood Drive to find out why Portee's daughter was screaming.
"The baby fell in the poopy hole," 5-year-old Tori Portee told them. By then, her twin sister, Taylor, was screaming, too.
Scofield looked down the hole but saw nothing moving below the still surface of waste and chemicals. The hole was probably no bigger than a basketball, far too small for an adult to get through.
Portee ran for a sledge hammer. Scofield, his heart racing, grabbed it and began knocking concrete chunks out of the access hole to enlarge it. He feared the concrete might fall on the boy, but he knew he had to get him out.
Seconds later, Portee jumped into the sludge, felt around for Isiaha and fished him out, Scofield said.
Scofield didn't know CPR, but he grabbed the boy, turned him upside down and pushed on his stomach, he said. Isiaha, whose skin was blue, coughed up a stream of liquid.
By then, Scofield could hear sirens.
"That just gave me the hope I needed," said Scofield, a family friend.
Paramedics worked on Isiaha until he started to breathe and cry.
"When he cried that was the best thing that could have happened," Scofield said.
Isiaha was taken to Tampa General Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition Thursday night.
Portee's wife, Julia, said that septic tank companies had been repairing the system the past few weeks, which might have been why the access lid came loose.
Tori and Taylor said Isiaha stepped on one side of the lid, dislodging it, and with his next step found the hole. The lid closed behind him.
"Had the girls not come screaming, we wouldn't have known where he was," Scofield said, still shaken hours later. "We would have thought he was abducted."
Isiaha's parents, whose identities were unclear, could not be reached.
Meanwhile, Portee, who was cut by broken concrete on the way into the hole, planned to get a tetanus shot, Scofield said.
As for Scofield, he planned to take a CPR class.
"To look into that hole and know there was a little boy in there," he said later, "you'll never know the feeling."
Saundra Amrhein can be reached at amrhein@sptimes.com or 813 226-3383.