An off-duty paramedic has saved a boy’s life with the help of a lifesaving app after a barbecue fell on top him at an Adelaide home.
Two-year-old Grayson Garrad was blue in the face when his mother found him being crushed under the weight of the barbecue smoker in their Yorke Peninsula backyard.
The barbecue had fallen onto the boy’s airway and when his mother found him he was unresponsive.
She called triple-0 immediately but her son’s chances of survival were dissolving with each second.
Robert Davis was waiting in line for an ice cream cone when he received a notification from the GoodSAM app alerting him that someone in the area needed urgent resuscitation.
The family were confused when a stranger came rushing into the backyard offering his assistance.
“This man in his regular clothes came, and I didn’t know who he was or where he came from,” Ashleigh Garrad told 7 News on Tuesday.
The volunteer paramedic got to work trying to resuscitate the two-year-old.
“The toddler just felt lifeless and I was trying to give some effective CPR,” Mr Davis told 7 News.
Ms Garrad said she could not be more grateful to the paramedic and the app for helping to save Grayson’s life.
“I thought he was going to be gone … we couldn’t thank him enough for what he’s done,” she said.
Grayson stayed at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for one week before he returned home to his parents.
More than 540 SA ambulance service staff had registered to become GoodSAM responders as of April this year, and already more than 10 per cent had responded to cardiac arrest alerts, according to data from the state government.
Responders are alerted when a cardiac arrest occurs within their local area and are instructed to provide CPR while an ambulance is dispatched to the scene.
The app is used in South Australia, Victoria and NSW and is available to anyone with first aid training, registered health practitioners, ambulance staff and volunteers and some uni students.