Toddler celebrates 2nd with rescuers

By Jeanne Starmack

The 2-year-old entertained some very special guests at his party.

YOUNGSTOWN — He stomped around the driveway in his little orange jumpsuit playing with his plastic trucks and his friends who’d gathered at his house for his special day.

The blue ribbon pinned to his jumpsuit said it all — Birthday Boy.

Rowan-Liam Welsh turned 2 Saturday, and to celebrate, his mother, Margaret Bathory, and his grandmother, Mary Welsh, threw him a party at their home on South Hazelwood Avenue in Youngstown.

Rowan’s a pretty typical 2-year-old.

He likes cars, said Bathory — and SpongeBob, cartoons, playing in the dirt, and barking back at the family’s dog, Jake.

Rowan’s party was also pretty typical. Grown-ups sat by while children ran around the yard, occasionally earning scolds from Bathory if they ventured too far away or got into something they shouldn’t have.

Two of the party guests, though, were very special.

Without them, said Mary Welsh, there wouldn’t be a party, because there wouldn’t be a Rowan.

And while Rowan got plenty of presents, Jeff Lytle, a Boardman police officer, and Shawn Ramsey Sr. each got one of their own.

They received plaques that read, “Certificate of Appreciation for your heroic efforts and for saving my life on June 15, 2007.”

Rowan was only 8 days old then. Bathory had just put him in his bassinet for the night around 10:30 p.m., and she was on her way to play video games with her then-boyfriend at their duplex home on Southern Boulevard in Boardman.

But she heard her baby coughing.

“When I went to check, he wasn’t breathing,” she said.

Ramsey, her upstairs neighbor at the time, heard her screaming.

He came down and began CPR. Bathory’s ex-boyfriend called 911.

In his cruiser at Glenwood Avenue and Devonshire Drive, Lytle heard the call come over the radio.

The fire department and paramedics were being dispatched, but Lytle beat them all there, driving two miles in about 21‚Ñ2 minutes.

“He beat me there,” said Welsh, “and I lived a block-and-a-half away.”

Welsh had been alerted to the situation by Bathory, who called her while her ex-boyfriend dialed for emergency help.

“All I could do was, ‘push 2, call mom, push 2, call mom,” Bathory remembered. “My mind wouldn’t function.”

When Lytle arrived at her house, he said, he found little Rowan on his back in his mother’s bedroom. He had turned dark purple.

“So I flipped him over and used the heel of my palm to give him back thrusts,” he aid.

The baby was actually choking on mucous. As long as he kept up the back thrusts, the mucous would loosen and the baby would cry.

If he was crying, Lytle knew he was breathing.

Paramedics arrived a short time later, and Rowan went to St. Elizabeth Health Center.

During Rowan’s four-day stay there, Bathory said, doctors told her he had sleep apnea — a major cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

When Rowan came home, it was nine months before he slept apart from Bathory in his own bed, she said. Even then, his bed was right next to hers.

These days, he just continues being a normal 2-year-old. He pulls his 6-year-old sister Barbara’s hair and gets out of his room by climbing over the baby gate.

And he enjoyed his party, which was all possible, said Welsh, “because of these two.”