How CPR saved a child's life

Faeez Rhoda, a Basic Ambulance Assistant at ER24’s East Metro branch, recalls the day he saved a toddler from death by drowning.

It was a late Sunday afternoon, the perfect time for family gatherings and playing outdoors. Faeez Rhoda, a Basic Ambulance Assistant at ER24’s East Metro branch, was on his way from his home in the Strand to Mediclinic Vergelegen to collect the ER24 ambulance for standby duty that evening. But a routine end to the weekend was shattered by a near tragedy.

“My adult son, Ameer Suhail, was hanging out in our neighbourhood park with friends when he heard frantic screams coming from a nearby home,” Rhoda recalls. “On arrival he saw a young mother, Lithe Henry, shouting that her toddler was face-down in the family pool.” Ameer Suhail, a volunteer for Disaster Risk Management, immediately pulled the unresponsive three-year-old from the pool, checked for signs of a pulse, and phoned his father.

Early intervention saves lives

“I told him to start cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) immediately, turned my car around and was at the property within six minutes with my ER24 jump bag,” Rhoda recalls. Having worked in emergency medical services (EMS) for more than 20 years, the committed medic says he has performed more than 500 resuscitations. “But near-drowning victims often don’t survive if there isn’t early intervention,” he says. “I immediately started praying, ‘Please God help me keep this child alive’.”

As is so often the case with medical emergencies, a huge crowd had now gathered around the scene and neighbours stood on roofs to get a better view. But Rhoda’s full attention was on the life-and-death task at hand. “I cut off the child’s clothes and started CPR, taking over the compressions from my son. I gave him my bag valve mask (BVM) – a self-inflating resuscitation device – and told him to start bagging the child,” he says. As the little boy, Micah, had been deprived of oxygen for almost 10 minutes, I told Ameer to take reservoir off the BVM to allow normal atmospheric oxygen of 21% to flow into his lungs while we waited for 100% oxygen to arrive.”  

Finding a pulse

Rhoda called for an ER24 Advanced Life Support vehicle and continued with compressions until the fire brigade arrived with oxygen cylinders. “I was exhausted, my shoulders were cramping, but I was only thinking of saving this child’s life. At this point, I detected a bradycardia pulse (a faint pulse below 60 beats per minute), but the child’s lips were still blue, and he had a body temperature of 23°C, meaning he was hypothermic.

Rhoda used two rescue blankets and a duvet to warm the little boy and asked frantic family members to boil a kettle. At this point, an off-duty Metro medic had arrived with an IV line, and Rhoda heated up the fluid in the warm water to warm up Micah from the inside.

Additional EMS support

Shortly after, the ER24 ambulance arrived with the necessary medication, monitoring devices and intubation kit. “We gave one ampoule of adrenaline while we continued with CPR,” Rhoda says. “And just after 6pm, almost two hours after Micah had been retrieved from the pool, we saw the return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC). We spoke among ourselves, as we didn’t want to give the frantic family members false hope. But as we noticed the rise and fall of the toddler’s chest, we intubated him and prepped the stretcher for transportation.”

Intubation entailed inserting a plastic tube down Micah’s throat into the lung. The tube was attached to a portable ventilator to help him breathe. “He was now in an induced coma to allow his body to rest and to minimise further damage to the brain and other organs,” Rhoda says. The ER24 ambulance then rushed the young patient to the paediatric intensive care unit (ICU) at Tygerberg Hospital.

Remarkable recovery

First thing the next day, Rhoda followed up with the traumatised grandparents, who reported no change in Micah’s condition. “But the day after that, I received a call from the hospital. It truly was a miracle. The staff explained that Micah was not only alive and awake but was sitting up and eating!” Almost in disbelief, Rhoda raced to the hospital. “As I came into the unit, Micah was giggling, surrounded by his family. Tears started rolling down my face because I knew we’d made an unforgettable impact on a family’s life. Doctors explained that despite his near-death experience, Micah suffered no damage to his heart, lungs or brain. These remarkable stories of survival make our work as emergency medical practitioners worthwhile.”

But Rhoda remains humble about his heroics, pointing out that it took a team effort to keep Micah alive. “When I went to visit the Henry family at their home a week after Micah was discharged, they were overwhelmed with gratitude and asked me how they could ever repay me for saving their son’s life. I said all I wanted them to do was pray for me at church,” the devout medic says. “I also hope to get an invitation to Micah’s fourth birthday party.”