Updated at 12:32 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The sheriff’s office is investigating a death after an aid call late yesterday afternoon to a Vader home where CPR was underway on a child.
Paramedics, firefighters and EMTs from five departments, plus deputies responded to the approximately 5:15 p.m. call at the 400 block of Main Street, according to Cowlitz-Lewis Fire District 20 Chief Richard Underdahl.
“I don’t have much I can say,” Underdahl said this morning. “Anything I can say, is the sheriff’s office is conducting an investigation on it.”
Crews were told by a 911 operator that it was a 3-year-old with breathing difficulty and someone there was performing CPR, according to Underdahl.
After responders arrived to the house, they continued CPR and conducted other life-saving medical interventions, he said. The child was transported to the hospital, he said.
Underdahl referred questions about the child’s sex and if the situation involved an injury as well as who was present at the house when they arrived, to the sheriff’s office.
Lewis County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said only that detectives are investigating the death of a 3-year-old boy with suspicious circumstances.
Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said an autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow morning.
“It was a bad day” Underdahl said.
“When something like this happens, everybody comes out of the woodwork,” he said, explaining why responders from as far away as Chehalis joined them, indicating it was the type of situation that calls for a lot people power.