Can you remember a time that you burned yourself?
The feeling you get afterward can be rather painful, depending on the severity of the injury. So, just imagine burning a larger part of your body.
It’s not such a great thing to envision, is it?
Well, for a 3-year-old boy from Prudhoe, Northumberland in England, his story illustrates just that point.
Tarnya Hillary can vividly remember the day her son was rushed to the hospital.
Jace, who was then only 14 months old, accidentally knocked down her cup of tea with a broom.
The steaming contents then landed all over his arms and chest, leaving him with third-degree burns. As Tarnya watched her toddler weep in agony, she started to panic.
“It was absolutely horrific and I quickly ripped his clothing but parts of his skin come off,” she said. “He was hysterical.”
Tarnya’s husband was not at home at the time, so the fearful Mother was left to deal with the terrifying incident on her own.
Luckily, her then 5-year-old daughter, Alyssa, stepped in to help the situation.
The little girl knew just what to do when she got on to the phone with emergency responders. “She was a little trouper taking over the phone call,” Tarnya recalled.
Alyssa did an excellent job following instructions and unlocking the door for paramedics. She was later commended for her quick thinking.
As for her little brother Jace, he’s on the road to recovery with the help of The Grafters Club, an organization for children who are burn victims in the North-East and Cumbria area. Apart from a couple of scars, he’s made some improvements.
This must have been absolutely awful. Jace was left with severe burns after accidentally pouring coffee on himself https://t.co/bDJ2P3rX6D
— Sophie Barley (@SophieBarley) September 21, 2017
The family has since shown their appreciation for the club by accepting online donations through Just Giving. They will also be hosting an upcoming event to aid The Grafters Club and are hoping it will help other families as well.
“The treatment and support he and the whole family received both then and now have been impeccable to say the least,” Tarnya wrote on the charity page. “We can never thank them enough for helping our whole family through this horrendous ordeal.”
What a brave little girl!
8-Year-Old Boy Saves Toddler Brother From Choking On Quarter
A big brother is often someone to look up to and in this case, an almost 2-year-old will have a life-long hero to look up to.
An 8-year-old boy is being called as a hero after saving his toddler brother from choking on a quarter.
Sterling Blake, from Independence Township, New Jersey, was busy playing with his 22-month-old brother, Grainger, on August 2 when, suddenly, the toddler put something in his mouth.
‘He probably grabbed the quarter and he ate it, or he tried to, but he choked on it,’ Sterling told CBS 2.
Once he was choking, I didn’t think about anything. It was just my reaction.’
Just two days before, the boys’ father, Ben, had taught Sterling how to perform the Heimlich maneuver on a baby.
‘He told me on babies, hit them on the back,’ Sterling said.
‘I thought he was choking, so I whacked him on the back. He threw up a quarter. He started crying.’
The Washington Township Police Department decided to honor the boy’s action with a departmental commendation certificate, sharing a photo of the ‘ceremony’ along with the two brothers on social media.
Ben, who’s a member of the police department who served as a Marine in Iraq, said that he and his wife taught their son to look out for his brother, how to recognize the signs of choking and what to do in that situation.
‘He’s very humble about it,’ he told Lehigh Valley Live. ‘Every time we told somebody, he just shrugs it off like it was nothing.’
However, the Blakes say that the ordeal is a lesson in making sure children learn life-saving techniques as early as possible.
‘It’s a huge lesson to parents to tell and teach your children how to do it. Even if you think they’re not listening, they are,‘ the boys’ mother, Essence, reportedly said.
‘[Sterling is] eight, he’ll be nine on Christmas Eve, and he listened to everything we said and did it the exact way he was supposed to do it.’
So many similar stories have appeared of children saving people’s lives after learning the Heimlich maneuver.
Just last month, 13-year-old Lila Szojka, received a national Girl Scout Award for saving her grandmother’s life when she choked at a local Applebee’s in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, back in March of this year.