Rams coordinator Raheem Morris recalls helping save 3-year-old drowning victim

The miracle was seeing a three-year-old pushing into a blocking sled this week at Rams mini camp. Raheem Morris was one reason the little boy still was alive and able to enjoy such a moment.

Morris is the defensive coordinator of the Rams. He and his family were celebrating the arrival of summer on Memorial Day weekend like so many Americans. The Morris family was splashing around at a hotel pool in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, an emergency room doctor also was sitting poolside.

On the other side of the pool, a seven-year-old shouted for his father. His three-year-old little brother was lifeless in the water.

“It’s truly a miracle when I try to wrap my mind around everything that happened,” said Kelseigh Stanley, the mother of three-year-old Wyatt.

The defensive coordinator, the Stanley family and Dr. Andrew Oleksyn all reunited this week in Los Angeles during Rams mini camp. When he first saw Wyatt, Raheem Morris reached down and scooped up the boy, giving the youngster a celebratory bear hug.

The miracle wouldn’t have happened if not for some quick thinking and yes, awareness and preparation, for a pool emergency.

EXCLUSIVE: @RamsNFL coach and doctor reunite with family after saving little boy from drowning: "Truly a miracle." @mattgutmanabc reports. pic.twitter.com/99E64N2QaT

— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 9, 2023

All the parties did a group interview for Good Morning America, Friday, to reveal details of how Wyatt’s life was saved by two strangers.

“I was sitting in the chair, and my 7-year-old runs up to me and he says, ‘Wyatt, Wyatt, he’s under the water,'” said dad, Joe Stanley. “And I went and got him, there was no heartbeat, no pulse. When I picked him up, he was face down, nose to the pool. I realized he was limp.”

That’s when Raheem Morris stepped in. “I’m sitting down and my kids all scream. I see Wyatt laying poolside and he’s blue,” Morris said. “I just wanted to help. And I could just feel the panic of it all. And I looked to the lifeguard and I said, ‘Where is the AED machine?'”

The AED machine is the automated external defibrillator. A Bills athletic trainer used an AED to save Damar Hamlin, Jan. 2, during a Monday Night Football appearance against the Bengals. In light of what happened with Hamlin, the NFL is now making sure that coaches are trained to use the device in emergencies.

Andrew Oleksyn, the ER doctor, was at the pool, too. “I knew, I knew … he was in trouble,” Oleksyn said of Wyatt. He started doing chest compressions and mouth to mouth. Wyatt still had no pulse. In between the series of compressions, Morris used the AED to try and restart the little boy’s heart.

Then that moment came, when everyone knew Wyatt would live. “I can hear (Oleskyn) in the same tone saying he got the pulse,” recalls Raheem Morris. “And shortly after that is when water spit out of the child’s mouth. When he said “he’s got a pulse,” I started clapping.”

Oleskyn visited the little boy at the hospital. He was overwhelmed with emotion. “Not only did you save Wyatt, but you saved his family,” he told GMA.

Wyatt was with his parents, sitting in his mother’s lap, when they did the GMA appearance.

“It’s hard to say what exactly his future is going to be,” Kelseigh Stanley said. “He was under the water for so long. We’re so happy Raheem (Morris) was there and Dr Andrew was there. Truly again, a miracle. God placed them all directly where they needed to be.”