“Shaken to the core.”
That was how mom Melissa Farrell describes her experience after her daughter Edenchoked on a piece of plastic.
According to a Sunday Star Times report, the piece of plastic came from a pottle of yogurt that four-year-old was snacking on.
“It was the Friday just gone, I left her with her yoghurt for two minutes and she came in and said, ‘Mommy, my mouth is sore’,” Melissa recalled.
“I opened up her mouth and a piece of white plastic was nestled just by her tonsils. Eden said, ‘It was in my yogurt’.”
Melissa said that the plastic was the size of a thumbnail, and that it had been in the bottom of a pottle of Yoplait’s Seriously Smooth yoghurt.
Because the plastic had been lodged in a precarious position, manually removing it had proved to be difficult, so Melissa rushed Eden to Waitakere Hospital, where the toddler had to be gassed to relax her.
Eden had been so distressed that it took five people in the hospital just to hold her down so the doctors could remove the object.
“If it kept moving it would have blocked her [airway], Melissa said. “When they pulled it out the plastic was red with blood.”
Following the harrowing ordeal, Melissa got in touch with the company, Yoplait, to alert them about the incident. They said that they would recall the product. They also offered her vouchers.
Sadly, neither of those things has happened.
“They haven’t put out so much as a press release,” Melissa said. “I haven’t even got a progress report.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Lion Dairy and Drinks which owns the Yoplait said that it had been an “isolated incident,” and that the company has already undertaken an investigation into the matter.
“We have notified all relevant authorities including the Ministry for Primary Industries and we have also kept the family informed of the progress,” she said.
“Unfortunately, the piece of plastic found in the yoghurt has not been able to be returned to us for analysis.”
She also said that they have “maintained regular contact with the family to provide updates and check on the health and wellbeing of their child.”
Learn how to attend to a choking child on the next page!
Attending to a choking child
Here are some tips from the British Red Cross on how to attend to a choking kid should you find yourself such a situation:
- Give up to five back blows. Hit them firmly on their back between the shoulder blades. If back blows do not dislodge the object: This creates a strong vibration and pressure in the airway, which is often enough to dislodge the blockage
- Give up to five abdominal thrusts. Hold the child around the waist and pull upwards and inwards above their belly button: Abdominal thrusts squeeze the air out of the lungs and may dislodge the blockage
- If abdominal thrusts do not dislodge the object, repeat steps one and two
- Call emergency hotlines if the object has not dislodged after three cycles of back blows and abdominal thrusts
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