THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 22, 1994 TAG: 9411220606
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Jessica Magary left the hospital Monday on her way to recovery, three weeks after being pulled unconscious from a backyard swimming pool.
Jessica, 17 months old, may have been in the water for 15 minutes before she was rescued on Nov. 1, doctors told her parents. Amazingly, doctors expect her to make a full recovery, although she will need about six months of speech and physical therapy to relearn skills that were erased from her brain by oxygen deprivation.
Co-workers at the Defense Commissary Agency have donated their leave to Jessica's mother, Laurie, so she can take her daughter to daily therapy sessions.
``We had to teach her all over again to hold onto things,'' said Bob Magary, Jessica's father, as he cuddled her and fed her a bottle.
``I think what saved Jessica's life was the fireman and the policeman who responded and started CPR so quickly, this hospital, and all the prayers from the community,'' Laurie Magary said.
The baby sitter who pulled Jessica from the pool at the Virginia Beach home was originally credited with saving her life. But later, Social Services investigated the case as one of neglect, and placed her name on the state's Central Registry, a confidential list of known and suspected child abusers.
The parents declined to give her name, saying they had agreed not to reveal the 26-year-old's identity. They said the baby sitter was talking on the telephone while she was indoors fixing lunch for the family's 4-year-old son, Jon, and left Jessica outside alone.
``Baby sitters shouldn't lose track of the fact that they've got the most important job,'' Bob Magary said.
Jon came to Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters to escort his baby sister home. He was traumatized by seeing her pulled from the pool, Bob Magary said, and blames himself for not watching her more closely. The family decided not to pursue criminal charges against the sitter to protectJon from possibly having to testify in court.
Jon insisted on toting two bags full of Jessica's belongings from her eighth floor room, including a box of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch cereal. That was the first food Jessica accepted after her ordeal, and after several days of refusing to eat, her father said.
For the first few days, Jessica would cry every time she was picked up. ``That was really heartbreaking not to be able to hold her and cuddle her,'' Bob Magary said.
A nurse stuck her head in the door. ``You want a wagon to take her down (to the lobby) in?'' she asked.
``No,'' Bob Magary said. ``I'm carrying my baby.''
Jessica still can't sit up by herself, and doctors don't want her to try to walk until a blood clot in her leg clears up. But she has started talking again, and grasping.
As television reporters crowded around the family, Jessica grabbed the WAVY-TV 10 microphone. Then she tasted the Channel 13 mike.
Thanksgiving dinner at your house this year? someone asked Bob Magary. ``I don't know if we can put it together this year,'' he said. ``We may have to go out.''
But his wife said firmly, ``We can put it together. This is my Thanksgiving. The only one that's meant anything.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by BETH BERGMAN/
Bob Magary holds daughter Jessica as they prepare to leave
Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk on Monday.
That's Jessica's brother, Jon, 4, at left, bottom.
by CNB