The Bonebright family It was a decision no father should ever have to make.

Sitting in the neonatal intensive care unit of UCLA Medical Center, Ventura County sheriff 's Dep. David Bonebright gazed at the frail purple body of his first-born child, Ashlyn, who just hours earlier had been delivered three months premature during his wife, Christine's, emergency C-section.

Having suffered a burst lung shortly after birth, the tiny baby girl lay in a glass incubator in critical condition, hooked up to so many tubes, wires and monitors that she was scarcely visible.

As doctors, many of them beginning to lose faith, struggled to get Ashlyn's oxygen saturation level above 45 percent (a healthy human's is generally around 98), one nurse asked David an unthinkable question: Would he like them to continue fighting the uphill battle to save her life, or would he like them to remove her support system so that he could hold his daughter in his arms once before she died?

With Christine, 28, still recovering from her hours-old surgery, it was a decision the 32-year-old Simi Valley resident would have to make on his own.

Christine, David and Ashlyn Bonebright It didn't take him long. "I never saw it as a choice," David said. "Life is so precious; I figured why should I stop fighting if she hadn't yet?"

David spent the next few hours reading aloud to Ashlyn. At around midnight, after David retired to his wife's side, Ashlyn's condition--against all odds--began to improve.

When the Simi Valley couple awoke the next morning, they discovered their daughter had indeed survived-although the fight to keep her alive had just begun.

"In the months before her birth, she kept surviving when people were telling us she wouldn't," said David, who's spent the last seven years on the beat in Thousand Oaks. "She was so strong. How could you give up on that?"

A long road

Following her "miracle" survival on March 14, 2005, it would be more than a year before David and Christine could take their daughter home from the hospital.

Born with a number of serious complications, including a very weak immune system, Ashlyn had to be kept under close watch at UCLA and then at Los Angeles Children's Hospital, forcing her parents to battle traffic on the 405 and 101 freeways day in and day out to be with her.

"We spent a lot of time in the car," Christine said. "But every minute I could be with her, I wanted to be there."

Despite all that was going on at home, David continued working 12-hour patrol shifts for the department, spending the rest of his time supporting his wife and daughter.

Though his mind often wandered to thoughts of Ashlyn's wellbeing-he was twice called from duty because doctors thought she might die-David kept working his job, trying the best he could to separate his life at home from his life on the beat.

"I knew I had to do my job, but my family was always in the back of my mind. I knew at any minute I could get the call," David said. "There were days when (Christine) was in the hospital that I would get grumpy, and I'd have to be careful not to take it out on the public."

Though David kept most of the details of his family's struggle to himself, little by little his fellow officers began to get word of just how serious Ashlyn's situation was. One of those officers was Detective Eric Buschow, who first met David when they were cadetsin-training at the sheriff's academy.

"He doesn't come in and wear this on his sleeve," said Buschow, the father of a baby boy. "If people ask him about it, he'll talk about it, but he doesn't go around advertising 'this is what I'm going through.'"

The more his fellow deputies learned, the more impressed they became at how David was handling the ultra-difficult circumstances, Buschow said.

"I don't know how he does it. Here he has all these things he has to deal with in his personal life and he's still able to handle all that and come to work and serve the community," Buschow said. "There are some pretty tough guys around here who just shake their heads when the subject of Dave comes up. The most common thing I hear is: 'I couldn't handle it.'"

The way David and Christine see it, it's the department that's been there for them. David's superiors have been more than understanding about his need to leave work at a moment's notice, and when he had to be with his family, fellow deputies would do all they could to pick up his shifts.

"I really believe he couldn't have had any other job in this situation," Christine said. "They are such a family over there. There is such camaraderie, it's incredible."

Just three weeks ago, deputies took part in a fundraiser for the Bonebrights at Dave's Flying Tamales in Thousand Oaks, which had been set up by the restaurant's owner, Nick Cruz. That day, Ashlyn made her very first public appearance since coming home from the hospital.

"She did really well," Christine said. "She slept almost the whole time."

An uncertain future

Though her condition has stabilized, young Ashlyn-only 14 pounds at 16 months-requires 16 hours of care a day from a home health nurse. Her bedroom, in which the Bonebrights spend almost all of their waking hours, resembles a hospital ICU, with machines to help her breathe, eat and stay free of illness. She must take 14 different medications repeatedly throughout the day in addition to doing physical therapy.

"This room is the center of our life," said Christine, who rarely leaves her daughter's side.

Because of complications related to her early birth, Ashlyn was born blind in both eyes, though doctors believe the sight in her left eye may be improving, Christine said. The couple is also uncertain about just how badly her brain was affected, and they might have to wait years until they find out.

"We just pray for the best and take it a day at a time. We know it's in God's hands," Christine said.

But if they've learned anything over the past two incredibly difficult years, David said, it's that Ashlyn is a fighter, strong enough to overcome even the steepest odds.

"She wasn't even supposed to be born. She wasn't even supposed to be here," David said. "She's the toughest person I've ever met."

Looking back on his decision to allow his daughter to keep fighting,

David, who survived a near-fatal accident while on duty in 1999, said he need only gaze in Ashlyn's blue eyes-the same color as his and Christine's-to know he made the right decision.

"I believe God wants to do something special with this child," he said. A fund to help the Bonebrights

with their increasingly large medical bills has been set up in Ashlyn's name with the Ventura County Credit Union. To donate, send a check to VCCU at 6026 Telephone Road, P.O. Box 6920, Ventura,CA 93006. Make the check out to The Ashlyn Bonebright Fund and please include the account number 1032460 on the back of the check.