A MUM has described the terrifying moment she had to revive her 16-month old daughter after she collapsed while eating her favourite meal.

Rhea Webb, 22, had visited her parents in Worthing with her daughters Isabella, aged four, and Clara, aged 16-months.

While Clara was tucking into some pasta she went unconscious and her lips turned blue. She had suffered a cardiac and respiratory arrest.

Rhea had to give her daughter the breath of life, and had to fight to save her.

“It was just sheer panic,” she said. “To begin with, I was not sure what was happening.

“We had an amazing day, then we sat down to eat our dinner. It was pasta, Clara’s favourite. It became apparent that something wasn’t right with my daughter, I initially thought she was choking on her dinner, so I scooped her up and started to do back slaps, rotating her from front to back to try and clear the lodged food.

“She very quickly went from eating her food nicely to changing colour, her lips and face started to turn blue.”

Rhea said her daughter was not breathing, and had become “limp, floppy and unresponsive”.

She said: “I started screaming, shouting for help. I thought nobody could hear me.

“I thought that was it and that I’d lost my daughter forever.”

Thankfully her father dialled 999, but she walked “frantically” up and down the hallway with Clara in her arms.

Rhea said: “Nobody could hear or understand what was happening so I immediately put my daughter on her back on my parent’s living room floor, realising I had no choice but to try and resuscitate my daughter myself.

“I started chest compressions and rescue breaths until help arrived, after six rounds and six minutes of being unresponsive the ambulance crew arrived within 3 minutes of calling.

“By this point I managed to get my daughter making a grunting noise, the crew came in and immediately started to help my daughter, turned her on her side and did some aggressive back slaps, I sighed with relief, at last. She took her first breath after six minutes. They quickly picked her up and took her out to the ambulance and continued treating her with some oxygen until they were safe to continue to hospital, but en route to Worthing’s A&E Clara suffered a tonic clonic seizure lasting two minutes.”

Clara was rushed to accident and emergency in Worthing, with one paramedic battling in the back of the ambulance. But at A&E the ordeal was not over as Clara continued to struggle with her breathing.

Rhea said her daughter had to be given a breathing tube. She was later transferred to hospital in Southampton, and spent nearly six weeks being treated there.

Rhea said Clara has been diagnosed with Vacterl syndrome, a condition which affects her spine, stomach organs and breathing organs.

She is affected by her windpipe and cartilage collapsing as it has not formed properly, risking future life-threatening episodes.

Rhea said: “What seemed to be a normal day in our chaotic lives, quickly and dramatically changed forever, a moment I will never be able to erase from my memory I will carry this on my shoulders forever.

“Clara spent the first five months of her life in hospital and has been forever in and out. We will continue to jump over every hurdle that is thrown our way. I am so proud of the little warrior she has become. I just wanted to say a huge thank you to the ambulance crew that attended the scene, it was very chaotic and they dealt with it all so professionally, they could clearly see we were all distraught. In the midst of it happening I didn’t manage to catch their names or say thank you, I will be forever grateful for what they did.”

She said Clara is always a happy little girl and has kept smiling throughout. She now has extra nursing care at home for two days each week as she continues her recovery.