This mother is urging parents to learn as much as they can about basic first aid after a harrowing experience that she had with her son.
According to the NZHerald, her son nearly died while he was enjoying a very common snack for little ones. Ashlie Johnson never expected this to happen when she cut up some apple slices and gave them to her little boy, Declan.
The mother of four gave her two-year-old the snack, never expecting what would end up happening next. Declan was watching television and enjoying his snack when disaster struck. From there, Ashlie heard her son let out what she referred to as a “weird scream” and then his face turned red.
According to the outlet, she and her partner Tyson did the best that they could to get the piece of fruit up but neither of them have a first aid certificate.
They summoned an ambulance to their Toowoomba home in Queensland, in hopes that they could save the child’s life. “He was walking towards me with his arms up, wanting to be picked up, but he was red in the face and trying to cough,” Ashlie recalls. “He eventually coughed, and was coughing quite hard and quite profusely.”
From there, he was taken to Toowoomba Base Hospital. X-rays indicated that a small piece of the apple had become lodged in the child’s lung. Declan was then sedated and flown to Queensland Children’s Hospital in Brisbane. A specialist attempted to shift the apple piece but they were unable to do so. The piece of fruit could not be removed without emergency surgery.
“Before surgery, they thought that the apple had moved in his lung, which caused his oxygen levels to drop,” the grateful mother explained. “He was in distress and he was starting to go blue. They put him onto a ventilator so they could run his whole breathing for him. We flew to Brisbane, he pretty much went from the helicopter to the theatre.”
Fortunately, the family learned within the hour that the surgery was a success. A day later, Declan was given the green light to head home.
Ashlie is now doing everything in her power to raise awareness about the importance of knowing the signs of choking. According to the NZHerald, she said, “What I have found since, is that some parents may not recognise the signs of choking. There needs to be more information regarding them. I’m still learning a lot, it’s all a learning curve.”