Three days ago, 20-month-old Sean McCarthy arrived at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario "ice cold" with a body temperature of 26 degrees Celsius and no vital signs. For 2 1/2 hours doctors at CHEO could not detect a pulse or a heartbeat in the young boy.

Yesterday, Sean's condition was upgraded from critical to critical but stable. Although still on a respirator, he has begun to breathe on his own, and has opened his eyes.

There is no sign of damage to the boy's heart, liver or kidneys, and his lungs, which were filled with fluid when he arrived at the hospital, are improving almost by the hour. There has also been no brain swelling, and with 48 hours having passed-- the critical period for sustaining brain damage -- there is now little likelihood of that happening.

He is well on his way to a full recovery.

"Things don't normally happen this way," says Dr. David Creery, the doctor who has been treating Sean at CHEO.

"If you had asked me on Tuesday if we would be sitting here where we are today, I would have said no,." the doctor said. "The outlook for someone in Sean's condition, the way he was when he arrived at the hospital, is almost uniformly dismal."

Now -- and while cautioning "we're not completely out of the woods, although we're at the edge" -- Dr. Creery is talking about taking Sean off his respirator in a day, and sending him home in the near future. He says hypothermia, just as was the case with toddler Erika Nordby in Edmonton, likely saved his life, lowering his metabolism and protecting his internal organs. Thirteen-month-old Erika was found frozen solid and clinically dead after sneaking outside on a freezing February night while her mother slept. Erika shocked the medical community by recovering fully after five weeks.

After more than 50 hours by his son's bedside, an elated Allan McCarthy yesterday described his son's recovery as "a miracle."

"There's really no other way to describe it," said Mr. McCarthy. "What has happened in the hospital since we've been here, and what happened on the creek that day, it's a miracle. I have to believe someone was looking out for Sean."

What happened on Indian Head Creek this past Tuesday is indeed a miraculous story. Shortly before noon on that day, Sean followed a dog out the gate of his day-care provider's home in Hammond, only to fall down an embankment and into the swift-moving waters.

As Kim Laverty watched in horror, the boy was swept down the frigid creek, through a culvert and out of view. The day-care provider quickly called 911, although when she placed the call there was no reason to believe the story would have a happy ending.

And then, the first of many strange coincidences occurred.

Volunteer Rockland firefighter Patrick Guindon was home for lunch from his job at a hardware store and only a block away when he received a beep on his emergency pager. He was on the bank of Indian Head Creek within minutes.

When Ms. Laverty told him what had happened -- that a small boy had fallen into the creek and been swept away -- Mr. Guindon began to run down the bank of the creek.

For more than half-a-kilometer the volunteer fireman ran, not once seeing the boy, beginning to think he had passed him, or that he had become trapped under the water, and then he spotted Sean, floating out in the middle of the creek.

Mr. Guindon continued to run as the boy was carried along on the current, with no way of catching him, and it might have ended there, with Mr. Guindon watching hopelessly as the boy drowned.

Then -- and you couldn't begin to calculate the odds against this happening -- Sean's coat was snagged in a branch overhanging the creek. If not for that branch, he would almost certainly have been swept away to his death.

Mr. Guindon and Ms. Laverty waded into the creek, brought Sean to shore, and Mr. Guindon started CPR. An air ambulance, which happened to be in the area, came within minutes to transport him to CHEO. Sean McCarthy arrived at the hospital at 12:25 p.m.

"Look at everything that had to happen in order to get Sean to the hospital so quickly," says Mr. McCarthy. "The fireman being a block away, the helicopter being right there, the branch in the river.

"If any one of those things had been different, Sean might not have made it."

It is an overused word these days, the word miracle, although with Sean McCarthy it may be the best word to use.