Kentish Express Ashford & District
MUM SAVES BABY’S LIFE IN SUPERMARKET
First aid warning to parents after boy chokes on crisp
A mother who saved her baby’s life when he choked in a supermarket is encouraging all parents to get first-aid training.
Natasha Davis, 28, from Aldington, was doing her weekly shop in Tesco at Park Farm, Ashford, with her nine-month old son Jai, when the drama happened.
She had given him a soft apple crisp to keep him occupied while she went round the supermarket in February this year.
The young mum said: “I gave him something which I thought he’d suck but instead he tried to swallow the whole thing.
“I turned around and I could see his mouth was open and his face was bright red. He was making no noise: no crying, nothing. I could tell he was choking.”
Luckily, Natasha is a trained first-aider at work so she quickly took action.
She explained: “I knew what to do thanks to first-aid training I’d received from St John Ambulance.
“I laid Jai face down along my arm, and gave some firm back slaps. The piece of apple crisp flew out and he was fine, like nothing had happened.
“You don’t expect things like this to happen to you as a parent, but you do need to know what you should do in these emergency situations.
“Without this knowledge, I would have had to shout for help, and by the time it came it may have been too late.”
A month after the incident, Natasha took a refresher course at St John Ambulance as some of the techniques have changed since she did her training three years ago.
One of these techniques is how to treat a choking baby. Instead of lying the baby across your arm, as she had been taught, it is now advised that babies are laid face down along the thigh and supported by the arm.
Deborah Adwent, the operations manager for St John Ambu- lance said: “Learning first aid only takes a few hours of your time, yet it could help you be the difference between a life lost and a life saved.”