4-Year-Old Girl Saves Pregnant Mom Suffering Seizure
Photo: WWMT.com/Youtube
Some parents talk to their kids about how to handle emergencies, other parents prepare children for one, and then there is Centerria and Calise Manning. For the past two years, the Kalamazoo, Michigan mother-daughter duo have been vigilantly practicing what four-year-old Calise should do if her epileptic mother has a seizure.
So when Manning suffered an epileptic episode last Wednesday, Calise sprung into action – assistance made all the more important considering her mother was nearly nine months pregnant at the time of the seizure. “I woke up and my daughter Calise was standing over me and she was on the phone with 9-1-1,” the mother told News Channel 3. “I was so proud of her.”
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The preschooler calmly spent more than seven minutes on the phone with a 911 operator, explaining the situation and providing her home address.
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“She’s shaking and she’s having a baby,” Calise explained on the call (CNN affiliate WWMT shared the 911 audio). “My mom is really pregnant and she’s having a boy and she really needs help.” When EMTs arrived, Calise let them in the house.
“We practice and I teach her…the address and my full name and things like that,” says Manning, whose fiancé was at work when she lost consciousness.
"I explained to Calise, ‘Mommy has seizures,’" Manning said. "Just in case I ever had one, she wouldn’t freak out." She didn’t. When the mother came to, she reveals: “[Calise] was like, I told you I was gonna take care of you if something happened.”
Typically by age five, parents should teach children their own phone number, Carlos Lerner, medical director in the department of pediatrics at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA in Los Angeles, tells Yahoo Parenting. By that time, kids should also know how to call 911. “But keep it simple,” he says. “Say, ‘If there is an emergency and an adult can’t help, call the police or the ambulance. This is how you call them.’”
Knowing one’s phone number in case of an emergency doesn’t have to be a scary lesson, adds Lerner. “Present this as a matter-of-fact skill and don’t provide more details or information than the child is ready to accept,” he says. “Answer their questions simply and directly, and let the kid’s curiosity guide how much detail you provide.”
As for learning how to call 911, try role playing. “Kids need to know the specifics about what an emergency is,” according to a tip sheet on the pediatric health system The Nemours Foundation’s Kids Health website. “Asking them questions like, What would you do if… is an especially good way to address various emergency scenarios and give your kids the confidence they’ll need to handle them.” (Another piece of advice: Refer to 911 as “nine-one-one” not “nine-eleven” so young kids don’t get confused looking for an “eleven” button).
Photo: WWMT.com/Youtube
Now that Calise, for one, has proven her ability to take care of mom, she’s turning her attention to the baby boy Manning welcomed two days after her health scare. Seven pound, seven ounce T.J. Manning joined the family Friday morning at Borgess Medical Center and Calise has already taken him under her wing. The tot says, “He’s cute and I really love him.”
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