Mum praises Scottish Ambulance Service staff during the “scariest moment of her life”

Ashleigh Morrison, 31, said she was at home on May 7 (2022), when her 10-month old daughter Billie Moss, her first child, was struggling to breathe at 2.30am.

She immediately called 999, and got through to call handler, Andrew McNicoll, based at the Service’s East Ambulance Control Centre, before Vale of Leven crew Carol Mackie, Paramedic, and Tracy Dickson, Technician, arrived within 10 minutes.

With Billie now at home after recovering from a bad bout of gastroenteritis, Ashleigh, an IT Trainer, wanted to thank the crew for their swift response and for Andrew keeping her calm and providing instructions over the phone.

She said: “Thank you so much. It was obviously a really, really scary time and they made me feel really comfortable and relaxed. It’s nice to be able to rely on that service in case anything happens again. I feel comfortable knowing I’ve done the right thing by phoning an ambulance and I know the help I’m going to get is going to be great.

“They made what was the scariest time of my life somewhat easier to deal with and I am beyond grateful for the amazing job they do. They really are a credit to the Scottish Ambulance Service.”

Describing the incident, Ashleigh said: “I was woken by a strange movement coming from Billie’s baby monitor and when I went into my room, I knew it was something to do with her mouth, but I couldn’t figure out what. When I lifted her up, that’s when I realised she couldn’t breathe and it looked like she was choking - there was no noise, no coughing.”

Ashleigh said Billie looked slightly pale and had a slightly blue tinge around her lips. Not knowing what to do, she said she “threw her over my shoulder”.

She added: “I don’t think this was the right thing to do. I was patting her back, while I ran back into my own room to dial 999. I was through to a call handler really, really quickly, and he was excellent. The first thing I said was ‘I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing by phoning you because she has literally just taken a breath and I’m really concerned’. He advised me it was fine, you have absolutely done the right thing, let me take this information.

“He told me not to do what I had initially done again after taking the relevant information and he advised me on what I should do, going forward should that happen again. I was really impressed with how quickly the ambulance got here. When the paramedics arrived, they were super reassuring, taking her observations, vitals and things like that, and making sure I was okay. They were also trying to reassure me to make me feel better; by this point I was really panicked.”

Call handler Andrew said: “I'd like to thank Ashleigh for taking the time to make this video and tell us Billie's story. It is so nice to hear there was a happy ending to what must have been a very worrying time for the family.  There will be stories similar to Ashleigh and Billie's on each and every call handlers shift that we never hear the outcome of so receiving feedback like this is a fantastic reminder of the reasons that we all do the job that we do.”