TV star recalls how first aid training saved her baby from choking

Television star Myleene Klass has revealed how a two-hour class in first aid training saved her baby girl's life. The TV host signed up for the course with a friend when she was pregnant with her first child, Ava. Five years later, she was forced to put her training into action when baby Hero choked on a small plastic star. ‘My mother, Magdalena, is a nurse and my father Oscar was in the Navy. Both are trained in what to do in an emergency, so maybe I had a tendency to feel I was always in safe hands. But I realised that they weren’t going to always be there to rescue us, and I wasn’t going to pick up that knowledge through osmosis.’ Having completed the course, which provides participants with basic lifesaving techniques, Myleene never thought of it again... until five years later when little Hero was playing on the floor:

‘It was a week before her first birthday. She wasn’t quite walking at that stage and suddenly I became aware she was half-crawling, half-staggering over to me.

‘She’d gone really, really pale and there was a bit of blood coming out of her mouth.

‘I ran to her and could see she was struggling to get her breath, she wasn’t making any noise at all because of course she couldn’t, but that complete silence was utterly petrifying.

Having opened the baby's mouth to see if there was a visible obstruction, Myleene quickly moved to the next stage:

‘I put her across the length of my arm with her face facing down, holding her diagonally towards the floor, as I had been shown, and gave three strong slaps on her back between her shoulder blades. I then sat her back up to check her airway. All the time I was saying to her, “Come on baby, come on baby.”

‘Hero was still trying to take a breath, but all the colour had drained from her and she was going limp. I put her back along my arm and gave her three more large taps.

‘That did the trick and she threw everything up all over the floor.’

Launching the Everyday Heroes awards in conjunction with the Daily Mail, Myleene urged all parents: ‘Ask yourself, would you know what to do in this situation? If the answer is no, then do something about it.

This video gives a brief outline of what to do in a choking emergency. To find your local first aid training course, click here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBsUyDiF_4U