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Tot Hit By Swing Set 'Has No Brain Function'

Katy Hennig / News Channel 8

The playground was closed to the public Sunday night.

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By CHRIS ECHEGARAY of The Tampa Tribune and BART PFANKUCH of Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: December 10, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG Two-year-old Lexi Antorino remains in a coma, breathing through a ventilator as her family remains by her side at All Children's Hospital.

Babysitter Joanna Janney, 14, was standing watch Sunday morning as her three young charges swung happily on a swing set at the Palmetto Point Civic Association Park.

Each time the two older girls, ages 5 and 6, would swing back together, Lexi would swing forward, Janney recalled Monday.

Suddenly, the swing set collapsed. The two older girls who were going backward landed on their backsides and were mostly unhurt. But Lexi, who had been swinging forward at that moment, was thrown to the ground, and the metal top bar landed on her head, Janney said.

Janney remembers screaming, more than once, and made a beeline for Lexi.

"I had to move the pole off her head to get to her," the ninth-grader at Manatee School for the Arts said.

Janney said she panicked a little, and stood there stunned for a moment.

Just then, next-door neighbor Richard Fowler came running over. Fowler, 24, was at home Sunday when he heard the commotion.

Fowler, who has been out of work since his mother died recently, said he often hears children screaming as they play at the park, which abuts his family's home.

But this time, he said, the screams were not joyous, but frightening.

"I heard the clatter of the swingset fall," Fowler said. "When I heard the metal fall, and then the screams ... I knew something was wrong."

As he approached, he knew someone had suffered more than scrapes or bruises. "I saw the blood, and it was way too much blood for a little cut," he said.

Fowler quickly took the child to him, wiping the blood from her head and placing her on the ground.

"She wasn't conscious, didn't have a pulse and wasn't breathing," he said.

Fowler said he decided to begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation, calling on training he received in a former job as an attendant at the Sarasota Bay Club retirement center.

First, he cleared Lexi's airway, then began breathing into her mouth. After about two minutes, he said, he could feel a heartbeat, and Lexi began to breathe.

"Once I felt her getting air, I felt relieved a little," Fowler said.

Lexi Antorino of Palmetto was taken by helicopter to All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg with a broken neck, broken back and fractured skull, said Janney, the cousin of Lexi's mother.

"She was bleeding from nose and ears," her father, Nicholas Antorino, said Monday. "She has no brain function right now. We are giving it time….hoping and praying."

It was the first time Lexi, who likes swings, had gone to the park, Antorino said.

"That's an industrial park and that should not fall," Antorino said. "There are no excuses. My daughter is laying on her death bed and she is 2 years old. I don't care if the swing had 10 kids on it. It should not fall."

Antorino said Lexi is a bright toddler who can speak English and Spanish, sings her ABCs, holds conversations and is a wonderful little girl.

The little girl's blood pressure fluctuates when she hears her parents' voice, Antorino said.

"She can hear us," he said. "She knows we are talking to her."

Lexi's mother, Sarah Parkinson, who is seven months pregnant, had to go home for some rest. Antorino said he is worried about her health in light of what's happened.

Meanwhile, there's been a national outpouring of support from people sending cards and calling Lexi's parents.

Reporter Chris Echegaray can be reached at (813) 259-7920 or cechegaray@tampatrib.com.

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