A shocked mum has told of how her toddler turned “blue” after choking as he ate a piece of plastic - that had been lodged in a pizza. Denise Perry-Humphrys, 25, made her 14-month-old boy Xavier the cheese and tomato dish as a treat on Friday, but panicked when he started coughing.
The worried mum-of-one said her “mothering instinct” kicked in to save Xavier, as she quickly pulled him out of his high chair and pulled the plastic from his windpipe with her fingers. While first aid advice is generally to not use your fingers for risk of pushing a blockage further, it is suggested as an option to parents who can clearly see an object and can pluck it out safely.
Supermarket chain Farmfoods, where she bought the pizza, promised to investigate how the suspected piece of “sellotape” had ended up in the dough. But Denise vowed that she wouldn’t be feeding her baby the dish for a few months and uses her fingers to examine all the food she serves him.
She said: “I have the anxiety of him finding an object in his food that shouldn’t be there - even in my husband’s food. So when that took place, I thought 'this is becoming a reality', and I started panicking, completely panicking.
“I try to present his food nicely, and I cut it into shapes, but now I’ve been putting my fingers in and I cutting it completely open to see if I can find anything.”
Denise, from Mexborough, South Yorks, had warmed up the pizza in her oven at 1pm Friday, before putting Xavier in his high chair so he could tuck into his lunch. But moments later she noticed the tot struggling to chew his food before he began to choke and then turned blue.
She said: “He’s usually very good at chewing, but he was having a bit of difficulty. He then started coughing.
“He started going blue, and that’s when my mothering instinct kicked in. I pulled him out of the high chair, and I put my hand in his mouth to dislodge it. I put my index finger in his throat and pulled it out, like a fish hook.
“I then took everything into the kitchen and looked through his lunch. It looked like sellotape because it was sticky and it was stuck together. You could tell it came out of the dough because there was a little space missing where Xavier took a bite out of.”
Thankfully, Denise said Xavier had made a full recovery once she had removed the plastic from his windpipe, and he hadn’t needed emergency care. But she had phoned Farmfoods soon after the incident, and they had agreed to conduct an investigation into her complaint.
Denise said she wouldn’t be purchasing their pizzas again for a few months until she had received the results of their inquiry. She added: “I won’t be buying it for the next couple of months until the investigation is sorted.”
Farmfoods have been contacted about the incident.
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