A HUNTER mum is searching for a woman who she credits with saving her baby daughter's life after she started choking at a New Lambton cafe on Saturday morning.
Sarah Grant and her young family were ordering breakfast at Too Hands cafe about 8.30am when eight-month-old Lilo began choking while eating custard.
"I picked her up and I gave her the opportunity to try and bring up whatever it was, because they normally do," Ms Grant said. "And she wasn't".
"So I started giving her back blows and then I yelled 'does anyone have a medical background, someone ring triple-zero'."
Another customer in the cafe, a woman, who is believed to be a nurse, took over and began working on the little girl, attempting to clear what was in her throat.
"It felt like so long," Ms Grant said. "It was probably in the space of five to 10 minutes but my daughter started turning blue, her eyes were rolling to the back of her head and she was going in and out of consciousness."
The woman who came to her aid put the little girl into a position and gave her back blows in a bid to dislodge what was in her throat and then started chest compressions when she started losing consciousness.
Meanwhile, Ms Grant was desperately trying to clear Lilo's throat so she could breathe.
"There was something in her throat and I was trying to hook it out," she said. "The lady was helping but we couldn't get it."
She ran out onto the street with her daughter and flagged down a passing ambulance for help.
At some point her daughter started crying, which they hoped meant she was able to breathe again and the woman who helped disappeared before Ms Grant could get her name and thank her.
The little girl was taken to John Hunter Hospital where it was discovered that a tiny piece of clear plastic had become lodged in her mouth.
"I think what happened was she had it in her mouth and then the custard has pushed it down," Ms Grant said.
Staff in the emergency department also told her how lucky she was that the woman had jumped up and started first aid.
"The lady in the emergency department just said: 'You know, that bystander has saved her life'.
"And I just lost it, I just started crying. It was just so scary. The whole day I was just in shock."
Ms Grant is now trying to find the Good Samaritan to thank her for saving little Lilo.
"She literally saved a life, so I would like to find her somehow," she said. "I just want to thank her for saving our baby's life and I feel like, if she is a nurse, nurses never get the credit they are due."
As well as the woman, who she described as late-30s with brown hair, there were a group of younger girls who Ms Grant said helped keep her as calm and rational as humanly possible during the ordeal, including one who took over at one point and tried to dislodge the object in Lilo's throat.
"Those girls were great," she said. "They were helping as well, just saying: 'you're staying so calm, you're doing everything you can'. They were really deescalating it and I tried to keep my calm as long as I could but by the end I was just hysterical."
She posted on a popular Hunter mum's Facebook group on Saturday, looking for anyone who knew the woman so she could thank her.
"If anyone knows the lady who performed CPR on my choking baby in Too Hands New Lambton this morning, please thank her from the bottom of my heart," she wrote. "Ambos confirmed she saved her life."
The post has been shared on other community groups, but so far the mystery lifesaver has yet to come forward.
