Diabetic mum hails daughter who saved kid brother’s life
A DIABETIC mum has told how her hero four-year-old daughter managed to pull her baby brother to safety after he became trapped underneath her collapsed body.
Little Ariah Calder saved baby brother Elijah – who is just 18 months old – after he became trapped under their mum’s body while she was having a diabetic hypo.
Heather Carson has now spoken of her pride as primary one pupil Ariah knew exactly what to do when her blood sugar level drastically dropped below normal.
The 28-year-old, a diabetic since she was 11, said: “Normally when my blood sugar level gets low I ask Ariah to go and get my Lucozade for me – she knows where it is and calls it my medicine juice.
“But this all happened during the night so I couldn’t tell her it was happening, she had to be able to recognise the signs herself.”
Heather, a portrait artist, had gone to bed with baby Elijah and Ariah on the evening on August 15 while fiancé Craig, 31, slept in their bedroom downstairs.
She believes at some point during the night she began to have a diabetic hypo and fell out of bed, where she started rolling around the ground.
When Heather woke up the next day at 8am she had blood running down her face and her tongue was bleeding.
She said: “When I woke up
I was on the bedroom floor and I saw Ariah sitting with Elijah on her knee in front of me.
“She said ‘mummy your face is bleeding. We were crying and a bit scared but I told myself not to cry because I didn’t want Elijah to be scared.’”
Heather, from Troon, South Ayrshire, can only remember the sound of what happened next but was rushed to hospital after worried restaurant manager Craig called her parents for help.
She said: “I remember Craig trying to take check my blood sugar levels and I just kept repeating the same questions over and over again – I wasn’t taking anything in.
“I was being violently sick every time I lifted my head, but my blood sugar levels weren’t that low.
“Craig called my parents and we went to the hospital.
“Then next thing I knew I woke up later that afternoon and I felt absolutely fine.
“The doctors couldn’t really figure out what it was because my blood sugar levels were fine, and it didn’t add up to how I was feeling.
“When Ariah came to the hospital we asked her what had happened and it was only then we realised she had given me Lucozade during the night, I just couldn’t remember.
“That explained why my blood sugar levels were normal again.
“I discharged myself from the hospital because Ariah was starting P1 and there was no way I was missing that.”
Mum-of-two Heather added: “She is so mature and observant and we are extremely proud and impressed that she knew how to recognise I wasn’t ok and what to do.”
Heather hopes to raise awareness of how important teaching children how to handle similar emergencies.