When Chloe saved Gracie’s life, it was a busy Sunday in 2013 and no one realized my 8 year old daughter Gracie wasn’t feeling well, mom Emilie tells us.
She woke up late and asked to take a bath but we told her we wanted to go to Costco first. We went out to Costco and ran a few other errands. June in Arizona …it was a hot day.
When we got home Gracie again asked if she could take a bath. She’s old enough to take baths on her own, and she got it started by herself. I was upstairs while she was in the tub for a bit, but then went downstairs to change the laundry, and I would occasionally yell “Grace are you ok?” and she would answer “yes”. My other daughter Chloe (age 11 at the time) was in her room next to the upstairs bathroom watching a show.
On my way back upstairs with the laundry I again yelled “Grace are you ok?” But this time she didn’t answer. I just had a weird feeling, I dropped the laundry, raced into the bathroom and found Gracie blue under the water not breathing.
I started screaming at the top of my lungs “Call 911, call 911!” As I grabbed Gracie and pulled her out of the tub and put her on the floor, Chloe pushed past me and started performing CPR, pushing on her chest hard with both hands.
By the time my husband got upstairs with the phone and 911 on the line, Gracie was coughing and spitting up water. In a few minutes we had her on her bed, covered with a towel and there were 10 firemen and police men in her room. She was disoriented but thank God she was breathing.
Gracie lost consciousness so she really doesn’t remember what happened, but she has heard us talk about it. We just call it “When Chloe Saved Gracie’s Life.” It seems like the best way to describe the event.
It turned out that it had been a febrile seizure because, unknown to us, she was already sick and then went into a hot bath. It just made her fever go up higher. Gracie spent 3 days in the hospital, and Chloe didn’t want to leave her side.
I can’t even express how grateful I am that Chloe learned CPR in her classroom. I wish every kid would…you just never know when it could turn them into someone else’s hero. Chloe was certainly Gracie’s.
Learn, Enjoy and Save Life. HealthForce Training Center offer services such as Basic Life Support (BLS), Advance Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS), Pediatric Advance Life Support (PALS), CPR AED, Pediatric First Aid CPR AED and First Aid CPR AED. Read more of our blogs.
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