A mother whose two-year-old son almost choked to death on a grape has issued a warning to parents on social media – that has been shared 80,000 times.
Sophie Jackson, 24, spoke of her horror after her son Jake turned blue when a grape became lodged in his throat.
The tot passed out and turned “floppy” from a lack of oxygen but was saved when his grandmother leapt into action and pierced the grape.
Now Sophie, who usually cuts grapes in half before giving them to her son, has posted the terrifying tale on Facebook that has gone viral.
She said: “Jake just grabbed two grapes and put them in his mouth.”
“I went up to take them off him, but before I knew what happened it went crazy. He just could not breathe and went blue and purple so quickly.
“I started to whack his back and so did his dad to try and ease it out. We opened his mouth to try and reach, but we couldn’t feel the grape.
“Jake was struggling, his arms went down and then he just flopped forward.”
“I said we need to get it out or he was going to die.”
Sophie, who was at her parents’ house in Hull, East Yorks., at the time, said her son was only saved by a desperate attempt by her mother, Michelle Oakley.
“My mum put her fingers into his throat to try and get it and she said she could feel it, so she punctured the skin, and we hit his back again and managed to get it out,” she said.
“He didn’t even cry- his colour started coming back straight away. We put him in the car and went straight to hospital.
“The doctor said he was very lucky, especially because of the colour he was. She said my mum saved his life. He is so lucky.”
Sophie, of Hull, said she has not recovered from the shock of seeing her son close to death.
She now wants other parents to be aware of the danger posed by young children eating whole grapes.
Sophie said: “I’m an absolute bag of nerves. I’m still so worried for him and it was so scary.”
“I usually cut his grapes up because the skins are too strong for him to eat properly, but he just grabbed them. It happened in an instant.
“I think the packaging needs something in the future, like a diagram, so everybody knows about the danger.
“Everyone likes to think it is not going to happened to their kids and that their child will be safe, but it only takes seconds for something like this to happen.
“I want to spread awareness about it so it does not happen again.”
The doctors said Jake only suffered trauma to his throat.
His mother said she wants parents to ensure they cut grapes lengthways when feeding them to young children.
“It is just so worth it,” she said.
“It was only about three minutes – that was it and we could have lost him. It was absolutely frantic.”
“I still can’t sleep at all – I’m awake just listening to him breathing. We were listening to every breath because he kept gasping in his sleep, remembering it.
“He just grabbed the grapes and put them in his mouth before I could do anything. It was just so scary.”
The incident comes just one month after tragic Jacob Jenkins, a two-year-old from Newcastle, died after choking on a grape in a branch of Pizza Hut.
Sophie, whose Facebook post to warn people has been shared more than 80,000 times, said the reaction had been amazing.
“Everybody has been really kind and have been really supporting me,” she said.
“I just want to get the message out there to everybody and spread awareness. It is so important everybody knows about things like this.”
