image array overwritten when theme called

This else statement, wipes out the $image array if there is no width or height. In our case, that meant the slideshow's were not apearing, because the theme() function when called was only writing out an image with a path, not the full URL (aka missing the image path)

    else {
      $image = array(
        'width' => 0,
        'height' => 0
      ); 
    }

This code could instead add the width and height to the array, but not sure why one would want that to happen. It should definitely not be replacing the entire array. I'm wondering if there might actually be an issue with the line

elseif ($item["type"] == 'image') {

We are using images, but in a field_collection so maybe that's why $item_type is not reading as an image and there is no width and height? If I remove this else statement the slideshow works fine.