Two young children have been honoured after saving their mother’s life when she suffered a cardiac arrest at home.
Donna Liddle, 39, was getting ready to take Oliver, 11, and Arianna, nine, to school when her daughter found her unconscious on the bathroom floor.
The young woman called her brother, who immediately sprang into action and put his mother in the recovery position after learning the technique at school.
Arianna then called an ambulance before running across the street to alert a neighbor, who began performing CPR.
Within six minutes paramedics arrived at her Aberdeen home and Mrs Liddle was given three defibrillator shocks to restart her heart.
Oliver and Arianna Liddle pose with paramedics John McCook and Monica Hurley after being honoured for saving their mother Donna’s life when she collapsed and suffered cardiac arrest at her home.
Scottish Ambulance staff with Arianna Liddle (centre), her brother Oliver (centre right) and their mother, Donna (second from right)
The proud mother, who spent the next two weeks in hospital, said they were faced with a “traumatic situation that many adults would have struggled with” but added: “Without a doubt, they saved my life.”
The brothers have been honoured for their bravery and life-saving actions by the Scottish Ambulance Service.
Ms Liddle was home alone with the children because her husband was working in London and she was preparing to take the children to school when she collapsed in June this year.
Explaining what happened, she said: ‘I was brushing my teeth and my daughter came looking for me and found me on the floor, unconscious.
“She screamed for her brother to come and help her. Arianna called 999 while Oliver tried to get me into the recovery position.
‘Oliver also spoke to the call operator while my daughter ran across the street to find our neighbors.
“She felt I needed immediate help because I had turned blue and wasn’t breathing. My neighbors started CPR on me before emergency services arrived.”
Mrs Liddle spent the next fortnight in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and is recovering well after being fitted with an electronic device called an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), which tracks and monitors electrical problems in the heart.
She said: ‘This amazing technology should work to stimulate my heart out of a fatal arrhythmia if it happens again and if it fails it will deliver a defibrillator-like shock.
‘Survival statistics after cardiac arrest are low and I feel very grateful to be here to tell the tale.’
The brothers were awarded certificates and teddy bears for their bravery during a visit to Aberdeen Ambulance Station, where they met some of the staff who attended the incident, including Monica Hurley, a newly qualified paramedic.
Mrs Hurley said: “It was wonderful to see Donna and her children again. Her children’s brave actions saved her life that day – early intervention is vital in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.
‘The children actually remained very calm throughout the entire incident.
“I will never forget the hug I received from the children after we were able to get her heart back into a sustainable rhythm and we were able to tell them that their mother is in stable condition thanks to the help of the trauma team.”
Ms Liddle is now seeking to raise £10,000 for the NHS Grampian Charity’s Cardiology Fund.
Ms. Hurley and John McCook, a technician who was also present at the incident, also volunteered to go to their children’s school to teach them CPR.
