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player ready...Nathan Woessner is sitting up, watching cartoons and, for the first time since being buried in a sand dune, talking.
Comer Children’s Hospital said the 6-year-old boy from Sterling, Ill., has been taken off a ventilator and is breathing on his own.
On Friday, Nathan fell into a hole as he followed his dad to the top of Mount Baldy at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. He was buried 11 feet below the surface for four hours before rescuers could get to him.
A post on the website of First Baptist Church of Galva, where Nathan’s grandfather the Rev. Don Reul is senior pastor, said the boy was feeling well enough to watch television, sit up and speak.
Sand lodged in Nathan’s lungs created pneumonialike symptoms and was flushed out often. The boy was kept sedated for the past week but is recovering from that sedation.
“Nathan Woessner has been upgraded from critical and is now in serious condition,” Dr. Rachel Wolfson, who took over Nathan’s care this week, said in a statement. “He has been extubated, is recovering from sedation and continues to respond to commands.”
Dr. Tracy Koogler, who tended to Nathan over the weekend, said at a news conference this week that Nathan is expected to make a full or nearly full recovery.
But he still has months of healing ahead of him, she said.
“Please continue to pray for Nathan and his family,” the church website reads. “Nathan has a little ways to go to make a complete recovery.”
Nathan’s parents have asked that the news media respect their privacy as they care for their son.
Reul said he believes Nathan’s rescue and survival were a miracle.
“We’re very aware that God has been good to us,” Reul said at the news conference. “And we say ‘thank you.'”