‘MY SON SAVED MY LIFE’
Darwin boy’s heroic deed
ABOUT 4am on November 18, 12-year-old Brendon Hatton woke up to find his mum Donna Woltring in the middle of a “full-blown convulsive fit”.
Brendon and his little sister Emily, then 10, were sharing a king-sized bed with their mum.
The siblings were horrified to see Ms Woltring convulsing wildly, with wide-open glassy eyes and blood in her mouth.
“I was in a full-blown convulsive fit, completely unresponsive,” Ms Woltring said.
“I’d bitten my tongue, and there was blood in my mouth.”
Spotting the blood, Bren- don knew the situation was serious and leapt into action.
“That’s what really scared me, because I thought it might have been internal bleeding,” he said. “I got up, quickly trying to wake mum up, and that’s when Emily woke up, she was getting scared because I didn’t know what was going on.”
Staying calm for his little sister, Brendon dialled an ambulance, and asked Emily to ring nearby family for additional support.
Listening to the dispatcher on the other end of the phone, Brendon made sure his mum’s airway was clear, she was laying in the right position, and her heart was beating. Ms Woltring has since been diagnosed with epilepsy, but this was her first shaking seizure.
“I was very open and honest with the kids — the worst-case scenario, I could have choked on my tongue and died,” she said. “Obviously that’s worstcase scenario. if the kids hadn’t been home, who knows?”
Nearly 12 months on from the horrifying incident, Ms Woltring is urging Territorians to sign up and learn first aid.
“I hope this story is inspiring for others,” she said.
“I can’t speak nicely enough of my kids. What Brendon did was really amazing.”
Ms Woltring said the small bit of first aid training Brendon had taken had given him the confidence to leap into action.
“It gives you the confidence to do something. Anyone can save a life,” she said. “There’s always something you can do.”
Brendon echoed his mum’s advice, and has since completed a first aid course with St John Ambulance NT with his primary school.
“It’s really important to know what to do in case something goes wrong. I’d only had a little bit of training (when mum had the seizure),” he said.
Brendon is one of 13,000 kids St John has trained in the past financial year. St John community education officer Hayley Edge said the program gave kids the skills and knowledge they needed to save lives.
“These skills are as important as reading and writing and things you learn in school,” she said. “Just hearing stories like this, with kids especially, reiterates how important these skills are.”