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First aid expert saves her infant son’s life

By Sean Moriarty
A Killarney mother has described how her first aid training saved her son’s life.

Selina Looney is a post and pre-natal expert and runs the local Mama Movement, an organisation that provides health support to recent and expecting mothers.

Her one-year-old Theo Ashe began choking last Thursday at their Castle Park home.

Selina’s experience is first aid was the key to his survival.

“Instinct, memory and adrenaline took over and I swiftly turned him over, delivering back slaps in an attempt to dislodge what he was choking on, flipping him over and checking and back to deliver more back slaps, while making my way to the front door to call for help from the neighbours,” she told the Killarney Advertiser.

It was the second time she had to use her skills to save one of her three sons. Less than three years ago her middle son Noah, who was only eight months old at the time, began choking while on a family holiday in Spain.

The horrors of the previous incident came rushing back last Thursday.

“In that moment all I could hear were my own thoughts, screaming, no, no, no, not again and for a split second I was paralysed by fear,” she added. “Fear that I couldn’t save him and fear that this time my baby would die.”

She is encouraging local mothers to take First Aid classes and will run an on-line course via her website www.themamamovement.ie.

The next course is scheduled for June 29 and can be booked via the website.