Girl Reunites With Life Savers

by COLlive reporter

Sophie Levitin and her family were visiting friends in Fairview, TN last June when Sophie’s mother, Devorah, realized she didn’t know where her daughter was.

After looking around a nearby shallow pond, Devorah noticed something floating in the water.

“I looked over, shone my phone flashlight, and I saw blonde hair floating at the top,” Devorah said.

Devorah said a family friend helped pull her out of the water. After that, Devorah performed CPR on her daughter for seven minutes until paramedics arrived.

“Obviously at that moment, I didn’t think she’d be coming home,” Devorah said.

But thanks to the first responders and Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital doctors and nurses, Sophie recovered after eight days in the hospital.

“We’re very very very very aware of the fact that most cases do not turn out the way hers did,” Devorah said.

Monday, exactly one year from the date of the incident, Sophie and her family traveled from New York to reunite with the medical professionals who helped save her life.

“This is the good stuff,” Dr. Richard Wendorf said. “This is why we do what we do.”

Now, Devorah said her entire family has a new appreciation for life.

“When kids recover and leave, we assume they do well, but actually seeing how they do is, words can’t express how rewarding this is for us, and how motivating it is to continue to do what we do,” Dr. Wendorf said.

Devorah said Sophie has some residual effects of the incident, including some brain damage, epilepsy and memory loss.

Now, this family is holding CPR awareness near and dear to their hearts, using their close call to hopefully save others’ lives.

“You are taught, shout out loud, you call 911, because otherwise everyone thinks the other person did it, and because we did it, we actually called from two phones,” Devorah said.

Sophie’s mother said she was back in the water swimming again just 2.5 weeks after being released from the hospital.

Video:
WSMV News 4