Paramedic rescues toddler choking on window blind cord
The mother found the 19-month-old girl hanging unconscious in her bedroom
By Louise Douglas
Scottish Star
LARKHALL, Scotland — A toddler who was seconds from death after getting tangled in a window blind cord was saved because a paramedic was on a call nearby.
Debbie Paterson, 24, found her 19-month-old daughter Eilidh hanging unconscious in the bedroom of her home and rushed to dial 999.
Within 90 seconds Scottish Ambulance Service medic Alex Kennedy was at her door in Larkhall, Lanarkshire.
He managed to clear Eilidh's airway before the toddler was taken to hospital.
Mother-of-two Debbie, a drycleaning worker, said: "While I was waiting on the paramedics, her eyes rolled back into her head and that's when I thought she had gone.
"We are lucky that I found her when I did as had it been a minute or two later she would have been dead.
"I am just glad Alex was nearby and he was able to save my daughter."
Alex said: "Marks were dug right in on her neck by the beads on the blind and she wasn't breathing.
"I turned her over on her back and kept her completely flat and made sure there was nothing in her airway. I then gave her oxygen, which triggered her breathing."
After being taken to hospital in Wishaw after the incident on October 14, Eilidh was taken to the sick kids' hospital in Glasgow.
Debbie now works with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to alert people to the danger of blind cords.
RoSPA's Michael Corley said: "This usually happens when children have been left to play or sleep. So we would say don't fit a blind with cords. There have been 25 deaths since 1999."
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