This is a story that starts with the celebration of life and ends with the mourning of death. Mike McGloghlon from Ontario celebrated his birthday with his friends and family at his home.
After the guests left, the table cleared, and the plates cleaned, he went into his eight-year-old daughter Jaina’s room to check on her. He found her feet sticking out from the blankets and a Mylar balloon over her head.
She was not breathing.
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While waiting for the medical personnel to arrive, Mike cut the balloon off and performed CPR until. They spent almost an hour trying to revive the girl, but it was too late.
“Right now, it's too raw with everybody,” Jaina’s grandmother told reporters. “What can you say? We all want to turn back yesterday and start over again.”
Now the devastated family wants to help raise awareness about the dangers of balloons.
“It was a big Mylar balloon,” the grandmother, who was the the house when it happened, said, “the number three, and it had different size fill-holes. The only thing we can think is that she would have opened it to suck the helium out, and put it over her head.”
Balloons are the leading cause of suffocation death to children, reports say.
Killer balloons
Accidents involving balloons tend to occur in two ways.
Some children have sucked uninflated balloons into their mouths, often while attempting to inflate them.
This occurs when a child blowing up the balloon inhales or takes a breath to prepare for the next blow, drawing the balloon back into the mouth and throat.
The second kind of accident involves balloon pieces.
If a balloon breaks, some children continue to play with it, chewing on pieces of the balloon or attempting to stretch it across their mouths and suck or blow bubbles in it.
These elastic pieces stick to the throat and lungs, completely blocking the breathing.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission advises parents and guardians not to allow children under eight years play with un-inflated balloons.
*This article is republished with permission from theAsianparent Singapore.
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