In May 2016, Neihana Renata choked on a piece of fruit while he was in day care. He was only 22 months old at the time, and even though teachers tried to dislodge the piece of fruit and perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to revive the little boy, he went into cardiac arrest for a whole 30 minutes. As you can imagine, the consequences were devastating.
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The little boy spent two weeks in intensive care and two months in a regular hospital ward. As a result of his brain being deprived of oxygen for so long, he was left with a brain injury and cerebral palsy. Once a healthy child who was meeting all the developmental milestones for his age, he now cannot walk and requires round-the-clock care.
This happened in New Zealand, but it can happen anywhere and to any child, which is why it's important to know more about how and why this happened so we can prevent it from ever happening again.