Boy, 2, survives subzero weather in Poland wearing only pyjamas

WARSAW (AFP) - A two-year-old Polish boy who nearly froze to death after spending a night in subzero weather wearing nothing but pyjamas is improving, his doctor said Wednesday.

Medical experts here dubbed the case a miracle as the toddler's body temperature plummeted to just 12 degrees Celsius after he apparently wandered out of his grandmother's house on Sunday night.

"We're very pleased with his condition...there are no negative symptoms, he's improving," Janusz Skalski, a physician at the children's hospital in Krakow, southern Poland, told reporters.

The boy, whose name has not been released because of patient confidentiality, was blinking and moving his limbs but was still on a respirator after emerging from a medically induced coma, Skalski said.

While his major organs were fine, it was unclear whether he had escaped brain damage.

"We'll unhook his tubing and hope to start playing with him tomorrow - then we'll be able to call it a full success," Skalski said, adding that for now the boy "was a little bit cross with everyone".

Police found the child lying unconscious on the ground near a creek in the village of Raclawice, just north of Krakow.

His grandmother said she had not noticed the boy slip out of the house.

Hypothermia expert Tomasz Darocha told the Polish PAP news agency that until now, the most dramatic case of recovery from hypothermia involved a Scandinavian woman whose body temperature had dropped to 13.7 degrees Celsius.

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