My Four Year Old Cousin Choking

My cousins and I were playing Sing Star on Thursday night (9th July) and we needed to put the little ones to bed. The two eldest little kids (3 and 4) are old enough to protest and wouldn't go to bed.

The 4 year old was crying because I told him to go to bed after he finished his apple and he didn't want to; it was already two and a half hours past his bed time.

He sat in the doorway of his mum's room chucking a wobbly and I walked off ignoring him because we're not meant to give the little kids attention when they are sulking for not getting their own way, and went back to playing Sing Star.

About a minute later my four year old cousin comes out crying and coughing or something and I realised he was choking. One of my 16 year old cousins and I rushed over to him. He was about four metres away from where we were sitting.

I remembered what I was taught about choking and put it into practise, taking into consideration that he was only four, I did it a fair bit lighter. The second 'hit' forced a heap of apple out of his throat and onto the carpet.

Afterwards my 16 year old cousin said that he was scared of me because I hit him on the back, he didn't really understand what was going on. Then he came and cuddled me and I explained to him what happened and made sure he was ok. He was still shocked about what happened but he wasn't scared of me anymore.

This morning we were talking about it to his mum (who was not around at the time of the choking) and she asked me to check his back to see if he was bruised because he bruises easily.

He wasn't bruised.

She said that it was fine if he was bruised because I had saved his life!

Arnah