Ten-year-old Rohnert Park boy recovering from hanging incident

A 10-year-old Rohnert Park boy who nearly asphyxiated when he became entangled in a bedsheet being used as makeshift tree swing was recovering well from his near-death experience and is not expected to have lasting medical problems, police and family said Wednesday.

But the Evergreen Elementary School fifth-grader is undergoing mandatory psychiatric evaluation in Sacramento to ensure the Sunday evening incident was accidental, they said.

It’s confusing for the boy, said his father. He said he was just goofing around with friends. But he doesn’t remember the precise moment when a loop of sheet tightened around his neck and he lost consciousness, the father said.

“We’ll take the doctor’s recommendation and follow up to make sure there wasn’t something going on,” the boy’s father said.

The Press Democrat is not naming the boy because of his age and the nature of the incident.

Rohnert Park Public Safety Sgt. Jeff Nicks said investigators were still waiting to interview the child before drawing conclusions and closing the case. The boy was expected to return home this week.

The boy’s father said the 10-year-old had been at the movies with his grandparents early Sunday afternoon and was later dropped at his Civic Center Drive home, where another grandfather was watching him and his two brothers; the parents were at Tomales Bay fishing.

The 10-year-old said he was going to go ride his bike and play with friends, but the grandpa got a call about 30 minutes later from police saying there had been an accident.

Nicks and the boy’s father said it appeared the kids had made a loop in the fabric and twisted it round and round in one direction before the boy thrust his head through the loop, or otherwise became entangled.

Authorities credit an 8-year-old playmate with saving the youngster’s life, saying the younger boy ran for help as soon as he realized his friend was in trouble.

His family declined a request for interviews Wednesday.

A neighbor, Jeremiah Ghilotti, who had just pulled up to the cluster of townhomes on Meadow Pines Avenue where the incident occurred, untangled the boy from the sheet and called his girlfriend, Elspeth “Ebbie” Wood, who performed CPR.

The boy’s uncle, meanwhile, was alerted to the incident and, unable to reach the boy’s parents by cell phone, drove out to the coast to find the spot where they’d pulled to the edge of the bay for an afternoon of lunch and fishing.

“He just pulled over and said, ‘We gotta go,’ “ the boy’s father recalled

The boy was taken, unconscious, to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, then flown to Oakland Childrens Hospital.

His parents, not knowing his condition, drove straight to Oakland, and found him on life support.

“It was bad,” his father acknowledged Wednesday. “It was bad. Worst nightmare.”

But the boy came to Monday morning and was expected to be fine, his father said.

Now he just has to clear the required psychiatric evaluation “to see kind of where his mind was at the time” and ensure he is not a danger to himself.

“It’s going to be fine now,” the father said.