Thirteen-year-old Dakota “Cody” Trenkle, Jr., is making a miraculous recovery after falling 240 feet into a ravine, where he spent three days alone without food or water.
Cody is now awake after spending 11 days in a medically induced coma, according to KSDK-TV.
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Stephanie Neely, his mother, knew her son was going to recover, she said, when he looked at her and used the sign language symbol for “I love you.”
“I cried,” she said from his bedside at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. “I started bawling. That was the sign I really needed. … I could finally take a deep breath and finally got some sleep that night because, in my mom heart, I knew he was going to be OK.”
The fact Cody was even found is incredible.
The young teenager went missing July 27 near Goose Creek Lake after falling off his skateboard. For close to 80 hours, family and volunteers combed through the thick woods to no avail — until July 30.
Three days after Cody’s harrowing fall, his brother found his skateboard. From that, a K-9 named Daryl with the Farmington Correctional Center was able to pick up Cody’s scent and trace it down a 240-foot drop.
Rescuers found Cody at the bottom of the ravine, lying in a foot of water. He was alive, despite three days of scorching heat, severe brain bleeding, pneumonia, and wounds from the elements. He was immediately airlifted to St. Louis and placed in the pediatric ICU, where doctors kept him sedated and on a ventilator for a week.
He began showing signs of waking up on Friday and was alert enough Saturday to sign “I love you.”
“When I asked him if he knew this was Mommy, he nodded yes,” said Neely. “I told him, ‘I love you,’ and he showed me the sign. That moment was forever monumental for me. That’s when I knew we were on a good road.”
In fact, the first thing Cody asked for — like any good teenager — was a soda from McDonald’s.
“We waited an hour, but he got his Coke,” Cody’s mom said.
Cody’s life has been one peppered by miracles. He was born a “super preemie,” according to his mom, who said she has “known he was a fighter since he was born.”
“He fought for his life then, and now, almost 14 years later, he’s doing it again,” she said. “Just proving to all of us just truly how strong he is, how resilient, and how stubborn he is, which is honestly what saved his life. He wasn’t going to give up. And he’s like, ‘I’m not just gonna lay here and die.’ For him to finally come out of it two weeks after he went missing is huge. He’s still proving to everyone, ‘I’m fighting, I’m still here, I can survive.'”
His doctors have cautioned Cody he has a lengthy recovery ahead but, as his mom said, there’s no doubt he is the recipient of a true miracle.
“We’re on the right path now, and I just want everyone to keep their thoughts and prayers with him,” Neely said. “He’s a miracle.”
Please join us in praying for Cody as he continues to recover. If you would like to contribute to his medical costs, you can donate to his GoFundMe account.
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