A two year-old boy who dodged death after a severe choking incident has been described as "a walking miracle".
Mum Grace Healy, who is a trained nurse, performed CPR on her son David after he choked on peanuts during a family trip to Kerry.
Grace, from Douglas in Co Cork, brought her son to University Hospital Kerry and he was later rushed to Crumlin Hospital, where he spent 18 days, Cork Beo reports.
Miracle boy David went through a number of surgeries and spent his time being cared for in the intensive care unit but is now back home and in good health.
Grace said: "David picked up a large bag of peanuts and was stuffing them into his mouth. He’s tends to be an overeater in general and completely stuffs his mouth with food.
"I said to my husband that we need to take the bag of peanuts away because he stuffing so many in his mouth and will choke if he continues to eat them the way he was. I preempted that he would cry if I tried to take the bag off him, so I offered him some choc choc if I could take the bag.
"Well he began to cry, but before he tried to cry he inhaled and took the biggest breath of his life in. Cue the coughing, I said he’s choking, turned him around and did five back slaps. Loads of peanuts fell out of his mouth and on the floor.
"But he still couldn’t breathe and was turning blue quite quickly even after the back slaps so I made my husband call 999 and I continued to do another couple of cycles of backslaps but his colour was worsening so I did a few cycles more mixed with chest compressions.
"Then my worst fear, he went completely limp and unresponsive.
"I made my husband hang up from 999 and drive me to Kerry General Hospital as I didn’t want to waste time waiting on an ambulance."
Doctors decided David needed to be transferred to Dublin urgently where he was rushed straight to theatre.
Grace added: "David’s oxygen levels were dropping rapidly. In Crumlin he had a chest X-ray which showed no air entry into his left lung so was rushed to theatre. An ENT consultant Mr Russell was called over from Temple street hospital to help with David’s case and we are so grateful because he saved David’s life. He told us that 'it was the most difficult case in his entire 23 years of surgery and that they nearly lost him many times in theatre'.
"They found four whole peanuts in his left lung and other peanut fragments. He just kept repeating how lucky he was to survive the surgery.
"A couple of days later they weaned him off his ventilator and he was breathing without the tube. The doctors were sure he was doing well and transferred him back onto a main ward.
"He lasted three hours on the ward before he was rushed back to the ICU and placed back on the ventilator again. He deteriorated rapidly and the right lung now was failing.
"Another surgery and 11 days on a ventilator with more complications than I can go into, he was woken and breathing on his own."
David then began to make a rapid recovery and 18 days after being brought to Dublin, he was allowed to head back home to his family in full health.
His mother added: "A full recovery thank god. It’s amazing that he has no cognitive impairment. All the times he went without oxygen he’s a walking miracle.
"We can’t believe he is home and healthy. We are so lucky.
"Please, please learn CPR and keep your skills updated. It could make the difference to your child or somebody else’s child’s life."
