THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996           TAG: 9602140568
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   47 lines

A 4-YEAR-OLD IS ALIVE AND RALLYING, A LIVING CREDIT TO A GRANDMOTHER

Della Cherry reached into the hole in the ice and plucked at the back of her grandson's clothing.

With her daughter's help, she dragged his still and cold body out of the canal. She turned up his face, scratched and cut from the jagged ice, and began the cardiopulmonary resuscitation she learned years ago.

``Please, God. Let this child live,'' she prayed.

Thanks in part to her quick action last Wednesday, Cherry's grandson, 4-year-old Brian Taylor, was alive and well Tuesday, sitting securely in the lap of his mother, Debra Taylor.

He beamed at a bank of cameras and reporters in a playroom at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk. He clutched a Barney doll in one hand, and with the other, he tried to grab a television reporter's microphone on the table in front of him.

Brian was one of the casualties in last week's winter storms. The little boy wandered away from his home on Breezy Road in Virginia Beach, and in the few minutes he was missing he stepped off a dock and fell though the ice of a nearby canal. He was in the water about five minutes.

As recently as three days ago, he lay in a coma, breathing with the help of a ventilator.

But his youth and some other factors helped him, said his doctor, Donald W. Lewis.

Lewis also credited the quick response of his grandmother, who knows CPR.

Brian will undergo rehabilitation to overcome any effects of his accident. It's too early to tell exactly what, if any, damage he has suffered.

A fund for Brian's family has been set up. Donations can be made through a First Virginia Bank branch. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

RICHARD DUNSTON/The Virginian-Pilot

Brian Taylor was alive and well Tuesday, posing with his mother,

Debra Taylor, in a playroom at Children's Hospital of The King's

Daughters. Brian will undergo rehabilitation to overcome any effects

of the accident. It's too early to tell exactly what, if any, damage

he has suffered.

by CNB