A four-year-old has been reunited with the paramedic who helped save his life when he was airlifted to the hospital after he stopped breathing at home as a newborn.
Little Isaac Hoey was just six-weeks-old when he “started turning blue” after returning from a family break in England’s Lake District with his mother Helen, 36, and father Steven, 41.
Ms. Hoey, who had learned life-saving CPR just weeks earlier on a 20 British pounds ($24) first aid course, resuscitated the child while they waited for medics to arrive at their house in Sunderland, northern England, in the United Kingdom.
Isaac was airlifted to the pediatric intensive care unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in nearby Newcastle, where it was revealed that Isaac was suffering from bronchiolitis.
The condition is a common lower respiratory tract infection that affects babies and young children under two years old.
Now four years on, the family has been reunited with paramedic Andy Mawson, who is also the director of operations at the Great North Air Ambulance Service — GNAAS.
An emotional video captures the moment a grinning Mawson tells Isaac he remembers him, but he that he was tiny when he last saw him.
Mawson said: “I still remember how tiny Isaac was when I first saw him, so it was a pleasure to meet him again four years later and see how much he has grown, as well as meet his little brother Elijah.”
Isaac has now raised 730 pounds ($858) for the air ambulance service with his little brother Elijah, two, by walking, running and scootering 32 miles in a month.
Mawson added: “I was delighted to hear how much the boys had raised for our charity and they should be very proud of their achievement.”
Ms. Hoey said: “Not many people realize GNAAS is not part of the [National Health Service], it’s completely based on charitable donations.
“It would be horrendous to think that another family would be in our situation, and that the air ambulance wasn’t there to help.
“It’s such an essential service and obviously needs to be funded in order to make sure that it keeps running.”
The family had been at the Lake District where Isaac, the couple’s first child, had shown common flu-like symptoms.
The parents decided to pack up their car and head home to Sunderland and placed Isaac in his car seat at 6 a.m. on Monday, January 22.
However, as the family were emptying the holiday home of their belongings, Isaac stopped breathing.
After beginning CPR on the child, Ms. Hoey rushed him inside where his father placed him on a kitchen table to continue following her advice while she called for an ambulance.
As paramedics rushed an air ambulance to the vacation home, Isaac’s parents incredibly saved his life.
Ms. Hoey said: “We had been for a weekend away in the Lakes and Isaac had developed a cold over the course of a few days which had gradually got worse.
“On Monday morning we had packed the car and were ready to go home when Isaac started crying in his car seat.
“It’s normal for a baby to cry, but then he was having a coughing fit whilst he was crying and his face went blue, so I shouted for my husband Steven and between us we rang an ambulance.”
Ms. Hoey said Isaac has had a couple of bouts of bronchiolitis since, but has now recovered well and his favorite thing to do is running.
Produced in association with SWNS.
