Inmate from Marysville finds purpose when he saves a life

When Asher Adams grows up, he’ll have quite a tale to tell. Not many people can claim they had a lucky day in federal prison.

That day was Jan. 27. Fourteen-month-old Asher was with his mother, Kari Rose-Adams, as she visited a relative at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan, Ore.

“It was horrifying; he was choking,” said Rose-Adams, an attorney from Vancouver, Wash. In the prison visiting room, she had given her toddler a pretzel. She suspects that congestion from an ear infection he had contributed to the crisis that came next.

Cheri Witter Hanson of Mukilteo was there. She drives often to the prison southwest of Portland, Ore., to see her brother. Franklin “Curt” Witter of Marysville was sentenced last April to 21/2 years for distributing anabolic steroids and prescription pain medication.

The case grew out of an international drug conspiracy investigation that began with a tip that a trainer at an Everett fitness center had been selling steroids. Witter, 47, has been at the Sheridan prison about six months.

Luckily for little Asher, he was there that Saturday.

“A woman came screaming ‘My baby’s not breathing, my baby’s nothing breathing!’ Right away, Curt jumped up,” Hanson said. She recalled urging the frightened mother to “please give the baby to my brother. He knows infant CPR.”

Rose-Adams said Witter didn’t grab her son. “He waited for me to give Asher to him,” she said. “It’s just so emotional for me. Words cannot express how thankful we are. He kept his cool the whole time.”

Hanson said her brother put his finger down the baby’s throat, then starting doing chest compressions. “Once my brother got the baby breathing, he yelled ‘Is there a doctor in here, anyone in the medical field?’ Someone took him, but the baby stopped breathing again. He was white, he looked like a rag doll,” Hanson said.

Witter spoke Friday from the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan, where he is held in a minimum-security satellite of the facility. He said that for a terrible moment, he thought the worst had happened.

“I lost my composure. I thought maybe he was gone,” Witter said. “In the midst of that, my sister yelled out, ‘Give him back to my brother, he’s done this before.’ A calm came over me. I thought, ‘I’ve got to try this again.’ “

He said he repositioned the baby, used the Heimlich maneuver, and heard a gasp of air. Asher’s breaths were shallow, and Witter asked that Rose-Adams talk to her son. “He started responding, he opened his eyes. The mother was right there,” Witter said.

Karen Angus, a spokeswoman at prison, said that soon after Asher was revived an aid crew from the Sheridan Fire District arrived.

The baby was taken to the Willamette Valley Medical Center in McMinnville, Ore., where he spent seven hours in the emergency room, his mother said. She said she knew he was better when he started playing peek-a-boo with the medical staff.

“He is a real hero,” Rose-Adams said of Witter. “I hope Franklin never forgets how important he is to me and my family, and to all the people who will get to know and love Asher in the future.”

“He’s very modest,” said Dean Witter, one of the inmate’s two brothers. “The road he’s had to travel has been tough. For all of us, this is probably the most difficult time in our lives. I was with him in federal court through all of it.

“People make mistakes. He acknowledged it and was able to get up and face it,” said Dean Witter, who lives in Southern California. Dean and his teenage son, Christian, drove Curt to Sheridan when he had to begin serving his time. The ordeal has strengthened family ties, he said.

“We’re all very close,” added Hanson, who was driving to Oregon from Mukilteo again this weekend to see her brother. She plans to meet with the baby’s mother there.

“We take it day to day,” Dean Witter said. “No matter how difficult, he’ll be able to look back and know this wasn’t a wasted time. Something great came out of it – thank God.”

Curt Witter works in the prison’s wellness center. He’s involved in drug and alcohol classes. Before his troubles, he worked as a jeweler and as a personal trainer. And when he gets out? “I’m trying to figure that out,” he said.

His brother believes that saving a life gave Curt a new sense of purpose.

“It was a blessing for more than that family,” Curt Witter said. “It helped me.”

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.