Hannah Sessions
Riverton, UT
Hannah Sessions survived a near-drowning accident while rafting on the south fork of the Boise River in July 2006, just days before her eighth birthday. Thanks to CPR performed by her father, her physician grandfather, and an emergency medical technician who was at a nearby campground, the little girl who had been trapped under a log and without air for at least 10 minutes was alive when an ambulance and an Air St. Luke’s helicopter arrived on the scene.
Her dad, Brook, says everything just seemed to fall in place: from Hannah’s brother Cole first spotting her in the river, to the expertise of their physician in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital in Boise, who had extensive experience in the treatment of child victims of near-drowning.
Even so, it was several days before doctors told Brook and Hannah’s mom, Kirsten, that Hannah would survive. She was transferred to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake, where she was in a coma for three months, but gradually began to improve. She continues to improve today; she is back in school, and loves to swim, ride horses, and ride her bike.
That Hannah survived at all is a gift for which her family will always be grateful. That she has progressed so beautifully is more than they dreamed when she was lying in a hospital bed.
