Firefighters save baby after he turns purple; “The worst night of our lives”

WBZ, ANDREA AND RYAN LEYDON, CNN

By Mike Sullivan

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    Massachusetts (WBZ) — A Woburn, Massachusetts mother said she wants to thank the firefighters who saved the life of her baby boy after he breathed in formula he spit up in his sleep and started to turn purple.

When the boy’s parents couldn’t stop the boy from turning purple, they called 911 hoping emergency crews could save their son. Thankfully, they did.

“The worst night of our lives”

“It was awful, it was awful. It was the worst night of our lives, honestly,” said Andrea Leydon, talking about her son’s near-death experience.

Leydon and her husband Ryan had both been through CPR training. When they saw their 6-week-old son Wyatt turning a reddish purple color, they began performing back blows on him.

“So I started doing that, it wasn’t working, so then I started panicking,” said Leydon.

Ryan took over with the back blows while Andrea called 911. She said fire crews were there within minutes.

Firefighters arrived in minutes

“The amazing thing was they got there in, like, four minutes. Getting to us so fast is what saved his life because we could never have got in the car and driven to a hospital when he was turning purple,” explained Leydon. “One of our neighbors, actually, who was there said that they didn’t even shut the engine off before they jumped out.”

“They met us on the side of our apartment building, and I handed him off to one of the firefighters,” continued Ryan Leydon.

“So they actually grabbed him and started suctioning his nose and his mouth and what happened was fluid came out,” said Leydon. “They believe he was aspirating in his sleep on his spit up, so they got all of that fluid out of the nose and mouth. Within a minute, we saw his color come back, and he started breathing again.”

Wyatt was taken to the hospital for an additional check up.

“For now, Boston Children’s had us thicken his formula to help keep everything down,” said Ryan Leydon.

“We owe them everything really, so we do plan on going down there and bringing them some treats and saying thank you in person,” added Leydon, talking about the first responders who saved their son’s life.

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