A nine-year-old ambulance volunteer used her skills to save her dad’s life – when he choked on a sweet.
Millie Murphy put her training into practice when dad James Murphy started struggling for breath after taking a mouthful of Midget Gems.
The quick-thinking youngster slapped her 40-year-old dad hard on his back to stop him from choking and dislodge the tiny sweet.
Grateful James, of Hull, East Yorks., said: “I’m sure I owe my life to Millie – she’s a hero.”
Cyclist James had just finished a training session when he needed a quick sugar fix and grabbed a handful of the jelly sweets from a bowl.
But as he was chomping on them one got lodged in his throat.
Describing the incident, father-of-one James said: “I could feel that a sweet had got stuck in my throat and I could not breathe.
“I had all sorts of awful feelings run through my mind and was panicking and thinking ‘what am I going to do to get this out?’
“Luckily Millie had come down the stairs and saw me and put her training into action.
“She slapped me hard on the back and dislodged the sweet.
“I don’t know what I would have done if she had not been there. I wouldn’t have been able to get it out on my own.”
Millie has been a Badger, the youngest volunteers with St John Ambulance and are aged between seven and ten, for a year.
She quickly put her training in to practice – saving her dad’s life.
Millie said: “I came downstairs and saw Dad choking so i hit him hard between the shoulder blades and the sweet flew out.
“We had been talking about what to do if someone chokes, at Badgers, and it made me confident because I knew what to do.
“Afterwards i felt proud that I had been able to help my dad, but a bit worried too, luckily he was fine.”
But James, a charity operations director, said it was not only Millie’s fast actions, but her aftercare, that also made him feel better.
He said: “Her great training not only meant that she was able to save me, but that she was able to get me a glass of water and sit down with me and wait til I was feeling better.
“I was a little shaken after it had happened and she made me feel better.
“Millie did a great job. I am very thankful to her. She is a little superstar.”
Only-child Mille has just turned nine and James and his partner, Millie’s mum, 42-year-old Shelley Bennett, who works at Hull University, made sure she was spoiled rotten on her birthday as a big thank you.
Badger leader at the Bricknall Badger Sett in Hull, Noreen Hackett, also heaped praise on Millie after the incident last month.
She said: “That Millie has put her first aid skills to use in such a life saving way makes us extremely proud of her, she showed true courage in stepping up to help when it really mattered.”
Colin Hackett, area manager for St John Ambulance, said: ‘We are all so proud of Millie.
“At just nine years old she had the skills and the confidence to help her dad in a very stressful situation.
“Millie’s story shows just why it is so very important to learn first aid skills, it’s never too early, or too late, to learn. You really don’t know when you might need those crucial skills.”
