MSP saves daughter’s life with first-aid tip from 20 years ago
Cole-Hamilton praises medical ‘heroes’
AN MSP saved his daughter’s life after she swallowed a coin.
Lib-Dem health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton sprang into action when four-year-old Darcy stopped breathing and began to turn blue.
And using first-aid skills he had learned 20 years ago, he managed to dislodge the 50 cent euro coin enough to keep her alive until paramedics arrived on Saturday night.
Now Alex is calling for school children to be taught first aid after learning from other parents that they would not have known what to do.
The MSP was heading out to meet his wife Gill when the drama unfolded.
He said: “I was just handing over to the sitter at 7.15pm. Darcy was sitting watching You Tube in her jammies when I heard this awful strangulated scream. She said: ‘I have swallowed a penny’.
“Then she was unable to breathe and started to change colour.
“I learned first aid about 20 years ago, when I was learning to scuba dive. I knew I had to invert her and give her five or six firm backslaps and, luckily, after that she was sick. She didn’t sick up the coin but it must have moved it because I heard her gasp. Once I got her stabilised and breathing, I called 999. I was just laserbeam focused. Nothing else mattered.
“She was sick and retching, trying to clear the blockage. The ambulance guy said if I hadn’t done what I did, the outcome would have been very different.”
The dad of three added: “I managed to clear the airway, I’m just glad I didn’t need to breathe for her. Darcy was blue lighted to the Sick Kids hospital. She was really brave. They took an X-ray and she was in theatre in 45 minutes.” And he was full of praise for the medical “heroes” who cared for his daughter. Alex spent the night at her bedside and by the morning she was “perky and wolfed down two bowls of Rice Krispies”. She was discharged home. The MSP added: “I am really keen to talk about it. The outcome of this was very good but there will be other families in Scotland this year not as lucky as we were. “There are interventions you can do if a child is choking and there are things we can do to prevent it, like cutting up grapes and not allowing access to marbles but houses are full of knick-knacks kids will put in their mouths. “I would like all children to be taught first aid in schools and will be reaching out to charities to see how we can do this.”