NewsaroundU on YouTube – Builder saves toddler’s life on supermarket checkout, The life and death situation played out on a Sunday night at an IGA supermarket aisle. Rowan O’Neil was a the checkout when his night was about to be turned upside down.A child’s mother rushed to the check-out with her limp baby in her arms – the toddler was not breathing.
Over the next 12 minutes, O’Neil fought to bring the baby back to life as the checkout became a make-shift emergency table.
Paramedics were called and were advising over the phone as O’Neil instinctively applied first aid lessons learned as a school student from more than a decade before.
O’Neil is a new dad himself and the incident has left him shocked but more determined to learn more about first aid.
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Amy Collard was shopping in a Perth IGA on Sunday when her two-year-old daughter Shaylar suddenly lost consciousness and stopped breathing. CCTV footage from the supermarket shows Ms Collard carrying her daughter’s lifeless body to a counter and appealing to other shoppers for help.
A couple can be seen helping the girl, who they feared was choking, by turning her upside down and trying to revive her while Ms Collard ran outside to find her husband.
The girl’s father, Michael Narkle, ran into the store shortly afterward and is seen breaking down at the sight of his lifeless daughter.
The situation appears hopeless as numerous attempts to wake Shaylar fail and her desperate father paces the store in despair.
But Rowan O’Neill, the man at the centre of the rescue effort, decided to make a final attempt and performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the tiny girl from a store counter.
Incredibly, the girl’s eyes opened and her overwhelmed father was told of the good news.
Shoppers in the store cried and embraced as the joyous moment sunk in.
The toddler’s parents told A Current Affair they were grateful to Mr O’Neill for saving their daughter’s life.
“I thought she was going to die,” Ms Collard said.
“I’m lucky that he was there.”
“Thank you very much,” Mr Narkle added.
It is believed Shaylar was struck by a high fever.
She is now home again after spending a night in hospital.
