Mum Lauren Poundall is urging other parents to learn first aid after she saved her young son Theo’s life when he choked on a button.
Lauren, 23, believes she might have lost the 15-month-old toddler had she not just attended the Whoops! baby and child lifesaving course run by the charity Children North East thanks to funding from Newcastle City Council and from players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
Theo was playing in the living room of Lauren’s flat in Throckley, Newcastle when he started to go blue and was struggling to catch his breath.
The assistant bar manager was getting ready to go to work in Newcastle early in the morning when her gran shouted through for her.
She said: “I said to my grandma, ‘What’s he had?’ and she said he’d been playing with my coat on the floor.
“When I checked it, there was a button missing – he’d obviously pulled a button off my coat and swallowed it.
“You could see he was trying to breathe but he couldn’t and he’d started to go blue. So I lay him over my knee and started doing back slaps.
“I was surprised at how calm I was – but I think that was because I’d done the course and knew what to do so I was able to stop myself getting emotional.
“The button was really lodged but I managed to get it out and Theo gave a cry of relief and started breathing again.”
Lauren added: “I dread to think what might have happened if I hadn’t done the course. It definitely gave me the confidence to deal with it in the moment though when I got into work, it hit me what could have happened and it took me quite a while before I felt OK again.”
She decided to enrol for the two-hour session run by Debbie Ellerby, Training & Project Coordinator with Children North East’s Whoops! Project at her local community centre about a year ago because Theo had suffered from erratic breathing in his first few weeks of life.
Thankfully he’s now a happy and healthy toddler.
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Figures from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), which has been running Family Safety Week, which lasts until today, suggest a child dies in the UK every month from choking, while hundreds more require hospital treatment.
Debbie Ellerby said: “Lauren’s experience just goes to show how fantastic our first aid courses for babies and children are – they really can be life-saving.”
The next course is at Gosforth’s Trinity Church on May 7 from 9.30 to 11.30am. For more information email: families.admin@children-ne.org.uk
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