"Toddler John" HAGGSTROM - 2 yo - Prineville (Mid-state; N of Bend) OR

Diapered Toddler in Snow: 'Minutes' From Tragedy

Mom's Boyfriend Fell Asleep, Later Arrested; Boy Walked 3/4 Mile

By Barney Lerten and Joe Burns, KTVZ.COM

11:47 pm PST February 24, 2011

PRINEVILLE, Ore. -- A mother returned to her home south of Prineville on Thursday morning after dropping a child off at school and encountered a nightmare: Her 2-year-old son, wearing only a diaper, had gotten out of the home and was wandering around their rural neighborhood in the snow and sub-freezing cold.

Vanessa Haggstrom, 25, began frantically following the barefoot boy’s footsteps in the snow and called Crook County sheriff’s deputies around 10 a.m.

Several neighbors who heard the police scanner reports also began looking for the child – but as it turned out, a woman walking her dog found the fallen, crying toddler, more than 20 minutes later, very cold and shaking but otherwise all right, said sheriff’s Sgt. James Savage.

"He actually had fallen into the snow and was close -- it could have been a real tragedy," Sgt. James Savage said.

More than 20 minutes after that call, and three-quarters of a mile away, the woman out walking her dog spotted the boy, out on the edge of Tillamook Loop, and called 911.

"She took her coat off and wrapped the child up," Savage said Thursday night. "Sheriff Jim Hensley was the first on scene. He put the child in his vehicle and gave him his coat. Then I arrived, wrapped the kid in my coat as well, just tried to keep him awake and keep him warm until the medics got there."

The toddler had been left with Haggstrom’s boyfriend, Michael Mac Pheators, 34, who reportedly had fallen asleep at their home at 3813 SE TillamookLoop, off Davis Loop, about 10 miles south of Prineville.

Hensley activated Search and Rescue, and several deputies began searching for the child, assisted by Crook County Fire and Rescue and the state Department of Human Services. The area had about 3 to 4 inches of snow on the ground.

When paramedics arrived, they said the boy just had "frost nip," the stage before frostbite.

The medics took the boy to Pioneer Memorial Hospital in Prineville for treatment.

The little boy "would have been in serious trouble (after) just a few more minutes in the snow," the sergeant added.

Mac Pheators, meanwhile, was arrested and lodged in the county jail in Prineville on charges of second-degree child neglect and resisting arrest. He was released later from jail on “matrixing” due to jail crowding, an officer said.

Authorities say the moral of this story is simple.

"Don't put your kids in a situation where they could wander off like that, and constantly check in on them," Savage said.

Savage added that the woman out walking her dog took a different route than she usually does this day. That decision, as it turned out, helped save a child's life.