Father Sam Titterton saves son from terrifying medical episode
A father-of-three has told of the moment he saved his son’s life after a horrific medical episode – and then waited 40 minutes for an ambulance.
SA News
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A father has saved the life of his eldest son, rushing to perform CPR after he noticed the child had became unresponsive during a horrific seizure.
Sam Titterton was in another room when he overheard his son Leo struggling to breathe.
The seven-year-old was suffering from a tonic clonic seizure — something he’d never experienced.
By the time Mr Titterton, who has had basic first aid training, entered the room, his son was unresponsive and had turned blue. He began CPR and waited for ambulances to arrive.
“It’s a shock, it still hasn’t left me yet, it was pretty traumatic to see your son in that situation,” the 40-year-old Aldinga Beach father told The Advertiser.
“I still have nightmares about it.
“That was the longest 40 minutes of my life.”
An SA Ambulance spokesperson said paramedics took almost double the time they should to arrive at the scene despite him being a priority two case.
“SAAS aims to get to these cases in 16 minutes, unfortunately it took us 30 minutes and we apologise for the delay,” they said.
After ambulances finally arrived Little Leo was transported to the Flinders Medical Centre.
There he was stabilised before he suffered two more seizures and was eventually transferred to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital where he was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit and intubated.
“It was very hard,” Mr Titterton said.
“To Leo’s credit, he’s doing amazing, he’s such a fighter, he’s so strong.”
Leo, who is unable to walk or talk as he previously could, has been in the Women’s and Children’s Hospital for five weeks — four in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
Mr Titterton said doctors have been unable to confirm a diagnosis but are confident he should be able to recover.
“They don’t know exactly what it is,” Mr Titterton said.
“They don’t know what’s causing it (or) what damage is being done.”
Doctors believe he may be suffering with a condition called febrile infection-related epilepsy syndrome or auto-immune encephalitis and are currently treating him for both.
Leo contracted gastro in the days leading up to November 9, when he suffered his first seizure.
“He was a happy, healthy seven-year-old boy before this,” Mr Titterton said.
“Doctors said there’s nothing he could’ve done to prevent it or know that it was going to happen, it’s just a rare occurrence.”
When Mr Titterton heard commotion coming from the living room he said it was “natural instinct” that kicked in.
“When you’re in a situation like that you have to do what you have to do,” he said.
“I’m glad I did do it because I don’t know if Leo would be here if I didn’t, I actually don’t think he would be but you do anything for your kids, so that’s what I did.”
Mr Titterton said going through this has been draining on him and his family, especially as he and his wife Corinne, 32, share two other children, Alby, 5 and Molly, 3.
“It’s been the toughest thing ever, but he’s worth it and we’re trying to keep it all together and move forward as a family and help Leo get better,” Mr Titterton said.
If you’d like to donate to Leo and his family, you can here.
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