A Scottish mum who performed chest compressions on her 11-year-old son after he stopped breathing following a cardiac arrest in a swimming pool has said it was "one of the most traumatic experiences of my life".
Martina McGeehan, 45, added that "it was awful - absolutely horrendous" and said that her son Leonardo Osorio McGeehan "was gone" after his heart stopped beating and she started frantically doing CPR - cardiopulmonary resuscitation, an emergency chest compression procedure. But as a result of the near tragedy, the medics also diagnosed that the lad suffered from Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, where the heart has extra tissue that causes palpitations.
Mum Martina, who had trained to do CPR and who has lived in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates for the last five years, explained that she and her children had been playing in the pool at their building when Leonardo suddenly said that he was not feeling well and his head went underwater. His mum and sister, not named, as well as a couple who were also in the pool, pulled him out of the water.
