Rapid Creek resident Jessica Silvester receives Save a Life Award after a deadly toastie accident

Her dad was whipping up some ham and cheese toasties when the unthinkable happened. As blood poured across the kitchen, Jessica Silvester had just five minutes to save his life.

Jessica Silvester received a lifesaving acts of bravery award after she saved her dad Tom Baker life. Picture: Glenn Campbell

A Rapid Creek woman has been crowned a hero after saving her father’s life.

Jessica Silvester and the women in her family had been making a Christmas pudding when her father accidentally stabbed himself in the leg.

“Dad was making us ham, cheese, and tomato toasties,” she said.

“He went to the fridge to get the cheese, went to the cupboard to get the knife, fumbled the cheese and went to catch the cheese with a knife in his hand and stabbed his left leg in the upper groin area, in the femoral artery.”

Ms Silvester said she was told it would have taken four or five minutes to bleed out from the wound had she not slowed the flow of blood.

She used a towel and an exercise band to create a makeshift tourniquet and lay her father on the floor to elevate his leg while the family waited for the ambulance to arrive.

Ms Silvester received the Save a Life Award at the 2022 St John NT Excellence Awards on Tuesday night.

Ms Silvester said it was lovely to be recognised for such a significant event.

“It’s being recognised for something that I would have done any day of the week and would do again, especially for my dad,” she said.

“It sort of brings back all the emotions of the day but it was really nice to have that recognition and have the family around to sort of come together and celebrate my dad’s life.”

Jessica Sylvester received a lifesaving acts of bravery award after she saved her dad, former NT police officer, Tom Baker’s life. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Ms Silvester said she had been terrified during the ordeal but had originally thought it was a “bit of a joke” her father had played.

“He said, ‘I’ve stabbed myself’, and I looked over at the ground and I thought I saw tomato sauce,” she said.

Her father, former NT Police officer Tom Baker APM, has since recovered and is “up and fighting fit”.

“He spent a couple of days in hospital,” she said.

“We were really lucky that when he arrived at the hospital, because it was quite hairy and touch and go and he probably only had a few minutes to live, they were able to clamp the wound and there was a vascular surgeon there.

“They operated on him for a few hours and then he was in hospital for I think three or four days.”

Mr Baker also endured a few weeks of rehab following the accident.

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