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Joshua Birch saved his father's life. Steve Birch had labored breathing and his son called for help. Mom Patty Zuba said her son was calm and asked her to come home because his father was having trouble breathing.
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Ask kindergartner Joshua Birch if he knows what the word panic means and he'll shake his head no.
He doesn't because Joshua is one cool cucumber.
He proved that late last year when he saved his father's life after coming home from school to find his dad having severe difficulty breathing.
It was the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Joshua got off the bus in his usual fashion; walked up the driveway of his York Township home in his usual fashion; and in his usual fashion hollered "hello" to his dad, Steve Birch, who was waiting for him in the garage.
And immediately, Joshua knew something was wrong.
His dad didn't say "hi" back. Instead, Steve, who is confined to a wheelchair after being paralyzed from a diving accident 18 years ago, had his head tilted back and was staring at the ceiling. His breathing was short, shallow and labored.
Joshua took action.
"I went to his room and got his inhaler and saved his life," recounts Joshua matter-of-factly.
But that is a 6-year-old's Cliff Notes version. There's a little more to the story than that.
Joshua first tried to revive his father by splashing water on his face.
Birch remembers feeling the water and has other flashes of what happened.
"I remember him saying, 'Stay with me, Birch,'" he recalls as his son used his nickname. "Then he said, 'Let's get you inside.'"
Once inside, Joshua hurried to his father's bedroom to fetch an inhaler and then pressed firmly on his father's stomach to clear any phlegm from his throat.
The boy, then 5 years old, tried to call 911 but the landline was down because of an ice storm the night before. He tried using his father's cellphone but he had trouble with the small buttons.
Still, he never panicked. Never felt scared.
"I just did it," he said.
With his breathing somewhat improved, but still a serious concern, Birch was able to help Joshua call his mother at work.
"In a nice, calm voice he said, 'Mom, I think you need to come home. Dad's having a hard time breathing,'" Patty Zuba said.
She called her husband's brother John, who lives nearby, and was able to get to the house quickly. By that time, Birch's breathing had improved to such an extent he decided not to go to the hospital, but he changed his mind the next day.
At the University of Michigan hospital, Birch was diagnosed with a serious form of pneumonia caused by a methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus infection.
He required a tracheotomy and a feeding tube and spent the next three weeks in the intensive care unit on a ventilator.
"When he was in the ICU, there were times I didn't think he was going to make it," said his wife.
One night during Birch's stay in the hospital, Joshua announced at home that he planned to sleep in his father's bed. He lay there a minute and then asked, "Mom, will I stop breathing if I'm in this bed?"
Visiting his father at the hospital, Joshua took to asking after Birch's blood pressure and checking his heart rate.
After more than two months in the hospital, Birch returned home Feb. 13.
It couldn't have been better timed.
He was just in time to celebrate Joshua's sixth birthday on Valentine's Day.
"He's a pretty smart one," Birch said of his son. "We're lucky to have him around."
Staff Writer Brian Cox can be reached at 429-7380 or bcox@heritage.com.
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