Wiltshire Air Ambulance called in as a baby stops breathing

8:32am Friday 9th January 2009

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Wiltshire air ambulance’s first emergency of 2009 involved them attending an eight-week-old baby that had stopped breathing.

Paramedics rushed to the Coral Cove soft play centre at Hopton Park, Devizes, on Friday morning when little Austin Jones fell ill in the arms of his mother Philippa, from Pewsey.

Play centre assistant Vici Knott said: “The first thing I knew about it was when the baby’s father rushed over and asked where the nearest A&E department was.

“Fortunately, there was a Czech doctor who was able to help but the paramedics were there within a few minutes.

“The baby was very blue. If it hadn’t been for the quick response of the paramedics I daren’t think what might have happened.”

Mother and baby were taken by road ambulance to the air support unit at police headquarters a quarter of a mile away.

Air ambulance paramedic Richard Miller said: “The baby was at hospital within 25 minutes of the call. It was only a five minute flight to the hospital but the baby was already awake and looking alert before we arrived.”

Austin’s father, Matthew Jones, of North Street, Pewsey, said the incident had been the most horrible period of his life.

Mr Jones said: “We were watching our other children playing on the apparatus when Austin went totally blue. Within five minutes Philippa and Austin were in an ambulance and on the way to the air unit.

“It all happened very quickly. I have nothing but praise for the way the paramedics handled the whole thing. To have a service like our air ambulance is an amazing privilege and the Government should be made to realise what a boon it is.”

Austin was born at Swindon’s Great Western Hospital and has a brother Hugh, four, and a sister Bella, 18 months.

Mrs Jones said Austin was now home but they were awaiting the results of tests on his condition. She said: “It is a very anxious time for us because we don’t know if it could happen again.”