Another "Watching Your Child About to Die" story
Years ago, around 7:30PM in the fall on an evening with pea-soup fog, my 8 year-old asthmatic tells me he's having difficulty breathing. Having dealt with his asthma since he was two, we knew the drill: give him an albuterol treatment via the nebulizer and recheck him at the end. 1st treatment didn't help much if at all. We'd seen this before, so we start the second treatment. Second treatment ends and he's breathing a little better but not like what we wanted. Now, my concern level is rising. I told him to sit on the couch and try to relax. He tells me it's getting worse and "the panic look" is forming on his face. I try to reassure him before I head for my bedroom. I start to put on my shoes and tell my wife that I think I'm going to have to take him to the ER. She heads to the living room to check on him, where she finds him in a full panic, unable to get any amount air. I am right behind her and she dials 911.
My child is fully desperate as he stands up on the couch... and then... his arms and legs extend and his entire board immediately went as stiff as a board. Then he collapsed and was unconscious. I laid him out in the floor and screamed at him... no response. I'd had CPR training, so my mind was racing through the steps. Meanwhile, my wife's repeating the instructions and the questions that the 911 person is feeding her over the phone. I was answering the questions, but I knew his heart was beating, he was not breathing, there was nothing in his mouth or throat... and the CPR class didn't address this situation. So, I went ahead and did the mouth-to-mouth thing simply because I didn't know anything else to do and I wasn't going to let him die without doing something. After 4 or 5 of the hardest blows I've ever blown, he sorta gurgled, so I turned his head to the side and listened. He was getting a little air in and out, but I was waiting for that to come to an end.
It took the ambulance 20 minutes to drive the 5 miles to our house (fog). He was still unconscious when they loaded him up and drove off with him and my wife in the front seat. They worked on him on the way to the hospital, but it was 20 more minutes before they told my wife that he'd opened his eyes.
After seeing after my other four kids and getting a neighbor to stay with them, I headed for the hospital not knowing what I'd find when I got to there. He was alert and after a couple of days in the Pediatric ICU, he was OK... no brain damage or any other effects.
He'd "thrown a (mucous) plug". It lodged in his windpipe and sealed it. Somehow, my feeble attempts had managed to dislodged it just enough to allow a small amount of air to flow around the plug.
The hospital personnel said this is what causes most sudden deaths in asthmatics. The people around them panic, throw them in the car, and try to make it to the ER. They told us we'd done (even though, in the moment, we didn't know what to do) the right thing by calling 911 and waiting on the ambulance.
When my wife brought him home, she pulled into the drive way, looked into the rear-view mirror to see his face, and then broke down and sobbed for 10 minutes. (She didn't think she'd bring him back home when she crawled into the ambulance that night.)
God decided to lengthen his life and I often remind my (now 17 year-old) son to make good use of the time he has.