Grandville-His family is calling 11 year old Dylan Silva a miracle child.
"No two ways about it, he's a miracle kid," says Dylan's aunt Julie Horlind.
The 5th grader at Grandview Elementary was trapped underwater for over 5 minutes while swimming at Ludington State Park last Friday.
He had no pulse and was not breathing when he was pulled from the river.
By all medical measurements he was dead.
"He was completely lifeless," says Horlind. "Just gone. He was not breathing. His head was hanging."
"The doctor in the trauma area and the Aero-Med doc both came in and said it wasn't looking good," says Dylan's mother Pam Silva. "He had been without oxygen for a very long time. And I just kept saying you're wrong. You're wrong. Dylan is a fighter."
Dylan was swimming with at least 10 other children in the river at Ludington State Park when he became tangled in a rope they were playing with.
He was pulled under the water.
A Kalamazoo Public Safety Officer and an Ohio Firefighter on vacation led a desperate rescue effort. They used CPR to restart his heart.
"Had those people not been there this would have been a totally different outcome," says Horlind. "Nobody gave up. They kept going and going."
Dylan is receiving treatment at Mary Free Bed Clinic in Grand Rapids for the residual effects from his ordeal.
He has some weakness on the left side and some short term memory issues.
But he is already able to shoot baskets with his brothers and cousins on the outside court at the clinic.
"His personality is starting to come back," says his mother, Pam. "He's walking around here like nothing is the matter. He's laughing, singing in the shower like his old self. He's just there. He's a miracle."
Dylan recalls going into the river but does not remember his brush with death. Only waking up in the hospital.
He is an accomplished swimmer and says he does not think this experience will make him afraid of the water.
Phil Dawson