Kahla Hilton, a concerned mother from Australia, posted a viral warning to Facebook last week after a terrifying teething-bead incident with her daughter that nearly ended in tragedy. She hopes that sharing her story will prevent others from enduring what she calls the “scariest experience of her life”:
“I wasn’t going to post about this, but as a Mother, Aunty and friend of many with kids, I felt I had an obligation.
I had an experience yesterday that I’m calling the scariest of my life. It’s a long story, a wild ride, but if you can hold on until the end I promise it has a good ending.
I was out to lunch with a girlfriend, we’d just ordered, and were sitting, talking as we normally would. I had Lukah in her pram next to me, and she was munching on a Rusk quite happily. Or so I thought.
I turned to look at her and noticed she had something in her mouth, and at first thought it was the end of her dummy chain, which she often chews on… until I remembered she didn’t have her dummy chain on. About a split second later I realised that it was a bead from her teething garland, which has been hanging across her pram for months for her to chew on. I quickly put my finger in the side of her mouth and got the bead out, and then I saw that she had another bead in there, half way down her throat. I started to panic, she was choking, and I froze.
As she went from pink, to red, to blue, I screamed at the top of my lungs for someone to help. People rushed from every direction of the cafe and a couple of them attempted to help. The cafe owner called emergency services as I continued to scream like an absolute crazy person. My baby was going to die, that’s all I could think about.
My loud screaming got the attention of people throughout the mall, including one man, who ran across the carpark, jumped through the open window, scooped Lukah up and had her in a downward position and giving her blows to the back within what seemed like half a second.
This man, was ex military, and he saved my baby’s life. I owe him everything.
We spent the rest of the day at the hospital. There were xrays and check ups galore. We weren’t certain which way the bead went, so we had to be extra safe.
Lukah has woken in her usual happy mood today, I haven’t slept yet. I’m paranoid. I can’t get the image out of my head. And I can’t stop thinking that if that man wasn’t there the outcome would’ve been a lot worse. He really is a superhero.
I don’t put blame on anyone for this happening. Not at all. But I do want to slap myself silly for putting so much trust in a piece of string.
