Saving Ethan: Utah family recalls effort to save autistic son after near-drowning at Palisades

PALISADES RESERVOIR — A 7-year-old Utah boy miraculously survived a drowning accident while on a family vacation at Palisades Reservoir last week.

Ethan Young, of Willard, Utah, was three days into his family vacation when the accident happened on Aug. 5, 2024. Ethan’s father, Morgan Young, told EastIdahoNews.com that his wife, Crystal, stayed back with Ethan while Morgan took everybody else out on a ski boat during the day.

When they came back to camp, Crystal said she was going to make dinner but Ethan, who is autistic and nonverbal, needed his diaper changed.

“She said, ‘But I’m making dinner so you need to watch him too,'” Morgan recalls hearing. “I was thinking ‘OK, he’s in the motorhome for a minute. I’m going to walk out and say hi to everybody.’ For a moment, maybe one or two minutes, we lost track of him. It was at that point when I thought to stand up and go change his diaper.”

Searching for Ethan

Morgan went inside the motorhome to find Ethan, but he wasn’t there. Morgan immediately went outside and made his way down to the water. Following behind him was Pedro, their exchange student from 2019 who was visiting and camping with the Young family. They both know how much Ethan loves the water and they began scanning the reservoir for him.

“We were halfway between where the vegetation stops and the water starts, and that’s when (Pedro) — he had something in his hand — but he went ‘Holy crap!’ and it went flying in the air,” Morgan remembers. “If that kid (Pedro) sprouted wings, that’s when he’d done it. I followed right behind him.”

As Morgan got closer to the water, he said he could see Ethan’s back. Ethan was about eight feet from the shoreline.

“I could just see white, almost like a turtle shell,” Morgan stated. “He was face-down. I couldn’t see any limbs, just barely his back.”

Pedro jumped in, grabbed Ethan and rushed him to the shoreline. Morgan said Ethan’s face looked “almost inhuman how blue it was” and he looked like a “ragdoll” as his arms and legs flopped around.

Trying to save Ethan

Ethan was placed on the ground where Morgan quickly began life-saving measures on his son.

“I started CPR but I did a hybrid thing which is not necessarily taught, it’s old school now, but for some reason, it fit the situation,” he explained. “I was doing stomach thrusts but I was pushing really high on his stomach so it’s also pushing down on his sternum a little bit. Within about 10 seconds of starting that process, I gave him a couple of breaths but he fought me on them a little bit, I started to see signs of life coming back — pinking up a little bit, eyes open and he makes some noise.”

Less than 10 minutes after the incident, Ethan and his parents were in their car driving to the intersection of U.S. Highway 89 and McCoy Forest Road to meet emergency personnel.

While Morgan was getting Ethan in the car, he threw up water but once in the car, he passed out and his color disappeared again. This time, Ethan’s mother came to the rescue and started CPR in the vehicle. She was able to revive him.

“We had just got to where the officers were and he stopped breathing again,” she said. “I pulled him out of the seat … (and) I continued doing breaths until the ambulance arrived.”

Getting to the hospital

Ethan was rushed to a hospital in Afton, Wyoming. Morgan said when they got to the emergency room Ethan was making noises and looking around.

“It was a beautiful sight to see,” Morgan mentioned. “They did a chest X-ray and found that not only did he not have any water in his lungs, but there never was any in his lungs. (Doctors said) it’s because young kids tend to go into a laryngospasm and close their airway off and stop breathing.”

It didn’t take long until Ethan gained his energy back and was showing signs that he was back to himself. The only problems Ethan had lasted a few days and they were he didn’t want to take his medication and when his mom tried to kiss him, he drew back and went “uh-uh,” which the Young’s say that’s because he must remember Crystal giving him mouth-to-mouth.

Ethan stayed overnight at the hospital to be monitored and was released the following day.

Wear life jackets, have watchers and know CPR

This accident taught the Young family lessons they want to share with others in hopes they don’t have to go through a similar experience. They want people to know how important it is for children to wear life jackets all the time when near water.

“(Ethan) loves water. We knew he’d go there. (When we) take him to the lake, he has a life jacket on. He knows he can jump in the water and his feet float up and he can sit there,” Morgan said. “We’re pretty sure that’s what happened. He saw water and thought ‘I get to go float.'”

They suggest that multiple people be assigned to watch every child in your group when near water. They also highly recommend people learn how to properly perform CPR by taking more than one CPR training course so it becomes “engraved” and “autopilot” if ever needed.

Ethan’s parents have known how to do CPR for years and they credit their CPR trainings to helping save their son.

“We had full on advance life-support equipment with us that we could’ve used to help him breathe if he wouldn’t breathe on his own but did we need it? No. Our hands and knowledge were all that we needed,” Morgan stated. “Having that knowledge absolutely saves a life.”

Morgan and Crystal would like to thank the first responders and hospital personnel who helped their family during this incident.