CASTALIAN SPRINGS, Tenn. - The muddy field was littered with debris after a wave of violent storms: living room couches, strollers, children's toys. So when two rescuers came upon a baby, they thought he was a doll.

Then he moved.

"We grabbed hold of his neck (to take a pulse) and he took a breath of air and started crying," said David Harmon, a firefighter from a nearby county who was combing the field for tornado victims.

The boy was found at least 100 yards away from where his family's house had been, possibly lifted by the storm's fierce winds, according to witnesses at the scene on Thursday. There was no trace of exactly where the house stood. His mother, who did not survive, was found in the same field.

As the death toll across the region rose by two Thursday to 57 people, the infant was a sign of hope. The 11-month old boy, named Kyson, was surrounded by flattened homes, bricks from a blown-apart post office and snapped trees, a devastating scene similar to so many communities across the South.

The baby's mother, 24-year-old Kerri Stowell, was one of six people killed in the small community, said Sumner County Sheriff Bob Barker.