Mary Saved David's Life Today

Thursday could have ended very differently than it did--calm, cheerful, a family talking too loudly over a dinner of leftovers--all because of one green bottle cap that my 15-month-old choked on.

Scottish Dance had just ended, so I had strapped Baby David and 3-year-old Thomas into their car seats. David is still rear-facing, so I could not see him. We were waiting quietly for a few minutes because Mary was auditioning for the girls' Latin choir. The other kids were playing outside of the van with their friends while we waited.

I was enjoying the blessed silence for a few minutes, as silence is a rare thing.

Mary finished her audition and came trundling back to the van, so her siblings leapt in too. John sat in the front passenger seat, so was oblivious along with me, but the other three kids who loaded in through the side door began screaming repeatedly, "David is choking! David is choking!"

I knew I couldn't crawl back there in tight quarters with any speed, so I leapt out of my driver's door and ran around the 15-passenger van to help.

Mary tells me that David was silently choking with eyes bugged out, face changing color, waving frantically.

I never would have heard anything and he truly could have died in the seat behind me.

I thank God for the grace that my children came back to the van when they did.

In the seconds it took me to run around the van, Mary began sweeping his mouth and dislodged the deeply stuck bottle cap. David vomited all over and was crying (breathing!) by the time I got to him.

Everyone else was fine, but the adrenaline rush was a lot for Mary, who wept with me for five minutes.

Mary is our family's heroine! We thank David's guardian angel for watching over him and we thank God that Thursday was not the day we lost our precious baby.

I don't know how David found a bottle cap in his car seat, of all places, but obviously it was a leftover from one of the children's disposable water bottles from some earlier road trip. In six kids, I do not think I've ever experienced that scary of a choking experience.