A heroic bus station manager who saved the life of a 14 month old baby said he was left “emotionally drained” by the incident.
Hasan Polat was working at Waltham Cross bus depot when Enfield mother Ruby Byrne ran to him, desperate for someone to help her son.
At first Ms Byrne thought her 14-month-old son Danny was shivering when she saw him struggling in his buggy.
The 19-year-old said: “Usually his legs might shake if he was cold so I went to pick him up and realised it was something much worse.
“He started going into a fit, his eyes were not moving and he went stiff and I started panicking. I asked a man behind me for help but he didn’t say anything so I ran across to the bus depot and cried for help.”
The desperate mother found Mr Polat and Luke Gilroy, who usually work at Walthamstow bus station.
Mr Polat, a station supervisor, said: “I was working at the bus station, I saw the lady coming up and screaming there’s something wrong with my baby. The baby was completely blue, and I hit the baby's back to see if he was choking but that didn’t work.
“I then saw the his tongue was blocking his airways so I tried my best to move it off of his airway, put him in the recovery position and he came back to normal.”
As Mr Polat revived the baby after he stopped breathing, Mr Gilroy called the ambulance where the toddler was taken to hospital.
Yet that was not the end of the drama for Ms Byrne as Danny had a second fit on the way to hospital.
She said: “It was scary, I thought I was going to lose him, I did not know what to do with myself. He then had another fit in the ambulance which was terrifying and the hospital then said it was because he had tonsillitis.
“I am very lucky to still have him and I the guys at the station saved my baby’s life.”
Speaking after the incident, Mr Polat said he was almost reduced to tears as he saved the baby’s life.
He said: “It’s not something I expected to be doing in my job, I have done first aid but I have only been here a year.
“It was emotionally draining that’s for sure – I just tried to keep a clear mind. Once it was all done I felt like I was going to cry, it was very emotional.”
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