Bethany Hamilton’s Brother Reveals Shocking Split-Second Decision That Nearly Drowned His 3-Year-Old Son

Bethany Hamilton’s brother tried to give his son Andrew an Epsom salt bath after it was discovered he was ill, before the boy almost drowned in their bathtub.

The surfing icon has asked for a medical miracle for her “precious” nephew Andrew, who is currently fighting for his life in Hawaii.

On a fundraising page for the boy, his family tells the story of his hospital stay.

“Andrew developed a fever and vomited on Friday,” father Timothy Hamilton wrote on Support Now, which has a goal to raise $100,000.

They were bathing him in Epsom salts near the kitchen and living room when they found the unconscious boy.

Timothy said his son is “the strongest child of five siblings and an amazing open ocean swimmer.”

“Chest compressions began, the heart was beating slightly. He spent several hours at Wilcox Hospital before being medically evacuated to Oahu,” he wrote.

Hamilton added that doctors were “excellent” in caring for her son, but Andrew is still on life support and receiving emergency care.

They are currently considering the possibility of obtaining hyperbaric oxygen therapy from Dr. Paul Harch in New Orleans, as well as alternative and traditional methods of treatment.

HBOT involves the patient breathing pure oxygen in a pressure chamber. It is designed to increase the level of soluble oxygen in the bloodstream, which may help brain tissue heal.

It was Dr. Harch’s son who notified Bethany under her post: “Dr. Harch is my father. I just sent you a message with his cell number. He wants you to call him. Sending you and your family lots of love.

In one extraordinary case, Harch was able to reverse 2-year-old Eden Carlson’s brain damage after she broke through a baby gate and a heavy door and then jumped into her family’s swimming pool in Arkansas in February 2017.

When her mother found her, she was lying face down and motionless.

After two hours of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and 17 EpiPen injections, her heart started beating again, but doctors warned that she would remain in a vegetative state for the rest of her life.

Now, in what is believed to be a world first, Eden runs, talks and laughs with the same energy as before – after undergoing 40 rounds of oxygen therapy.

The results were so clear, and Eden’s MRI results improved so markedly, that her case was published in the medical journal Medical Gas Research.

The therapy is not approved by the FDA and is not covered by insurance.

Bethany, 34, said: “We are devastated. But I know how the right medical support can increase or decrease someone’s chance of survival.

“In this case, we are asking for the help of anyone with information on what we can do to give my nephew the best chance possible.”

Bethany’s brother, Noah, also asked for people’s prayers, calling his little nephew a “strong, resilient baby” and “an amazing swimmer.”

He wrote: “Join us in praying for my brother’s fifth youngest child, Andrew, as he was rescued to Oahu in the middle of the night.

– He’s three and a half, now he’s five. He’s a strong, resilient kid and an amazing swimmer. He was found not breathing in the shallow water of the bathtub. His vital signs were good enough to get him to Oahu.

Bethany is best known for the shark attack that almost ended her career at the age of 13.

In 2003, while she was surfing off the coast of Kauai with a friend’s family, a 12-foot tiger shark bit off her left arm just below the shoulder.

The others managed to swim her back to shore and apply a tourniquet, but by the time she reached the hospital, she had already lost 60 percent of her blood.

The tiger shark, which was caught and killed shortly after the attack, had pieces of a surfboard in its jaws.

Despite the devastating injury, it took Bethany less than a month to recover before she returned to surfing, and after the attack in 2004, she competed in her first professional competition.