A nine-year-old German boy has been hailed a hero for resuscitating his two-year-old brother after he fell into a garden swimming pool.
The brothers were being looked after by their grandmother at her home in Korbach in central Germany.
When she went to find a nappy, the younger boy Rudolf went into the garden and fell face down in the water.
The toddler, who had stopped breathing, was pulled from the pool by his brother Markus and his grandmother.
Markus then called paramedics because his grandmother has poor German and primarily speaks Russian.
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The elder brother was told over the phone how to provide first aid, giving heart massage and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Rudolf began breathing again before paramedics arrived and airlifted him to hospital in Marburg, north of Frankfurt.
The paramedic who helped him praised the boy’s actions saying Markus followed instructions exactly, despite his initial panic.
Michael Seebold described how he had told the boy to put his brother in the recovery position, hold his nose and start mouth-to-mouth.
How to resuscitate a child
- Shout for help and carefully turn the child on their back
- Open child’s airway by gently tilting the head backwards and lifting the chin. Ignore this step if the child is younger than one and instead keep the head and neck in line
- Check for breathing by looking for chest movements, feeling for exhaled air and listening for sounds
- If they are not breathing, remove any obvious obstruction in the mouth and give five initial rescue breaths, known as mouth-to-mouth or the kiss of life
- To give mouth-to-mouth, cover the child’s mouth with your own while pinching shut their nostrils
- For infants, instead cover the baby’s mouth and nose with your mouth to stop air escaping
- If the child begins breathing, turn them on their side in the recovery position (and be prepared to give more rescue breaths) and send for help
- If the child is still not breathing, start chest compressions on the breast bone immediately
- Combine chest compressions with rescue breaths – two breaths after every 30 compressions (given at a rate of about twice a second – and continue until child shows signs of life)
Source: NHS