Quick-thinking mum saves baby's life after waking up at 2.30am due to "gut feeling" something was wrong

Sammie in hospital
Sammie in hospital -Credit:Lucy Robin© SWNS


A mum saved her baby's life by performing CPR - after she woke up with a "gut feeling" something wasn't right. Lucy Robin, 35, found 17-day-old Sammie blue, freezing cold and not breathing when she woke up in the middle of the night.

Despite assuming the worst, she used her CPR training to get her son breathing again as an ambulance was called. Paramedics arrived just in time and took Sammie to the hospital where his breathing was "stabilised" after two-and-a-half nervy hours.

Sammie, who recently turned one, "would not be here today if it wasn't for my training", Lucy said. Now the mum-of-seven has quit her job to raise awareness among future parents around CPR if they ever find themselves in her position.

Lucy, from north London, said: "It’s a couple of hours of training, but for Sammie it was worth a lifetime." Sammie, twin to Sophie, was born at 33 weeks without a heartbeat and regular breathing.

He spent nine days in neonatal intensive care before getting discharged back home. "Everything with him was clinically fine when he was back home", Lucy said.

"But I had a gut feeling that something wasn't right with him." She put him to bed at 11pm in his cot and went to sleep.

Mum Lucy with Sammie in hospital
Mum Lucy with Sammie in hospital -Credit:Lucy Robin© SWNS

At 2.30am Lucy suddenly woke up. "I sat upright in bed. I didn’t even wake up slowly. I literally sat up straight away.

"As I sat up I remember a voice in my head saying, look at the baby. He was in his bedside crib and he was blue. As I picked him up, his hands were freezing cold.

"I took him out of his crib. He had a tiny trickle of blood by his nose. I shouted my husband, he woke up and I said 'the baby’s not breathing'.

"My first thought was: sh*t. My second was: he’s dead. My third: I need to do something. My training kicked in - I had been taught CPR at work."

Lucy started CPR on little Sammie, desperately trying to revive his breathing as her husband, Patrick, called an ambulance. She said she remembers Patrick phoning a family friend to tell him "Sammie's gone".

Twins Sammie and Sophie
Twins Sammie and Sophie -Credit:Lucy Robin© SWNS

Lucy said: "I got his breathing back but not fully, he was taking a breath once every thirty seconds." Within seven minutes paramedics and police arrived and took over.

"I was giving CPR and the next minute my house was full of paramedics and police", Lucy said. After two-and-a-half hours Sammie's breathing had stabilised and he remained in hospital for four weeks.

Despite several brain scans, doctors don't know what caused Sammie to go into peri-arrest - the medical term for the unstable condition a person goes into after a cardiac arrest. Lucy said: "If I didn’t wake up, he would have died".

Now, she's volunteering - at the hospital where Sammie was born - by raising awareness among future parents around the importance of CPR. "I think it’s important people know how to help their babies," she said.

"The CPR kept his body pumping oxygen around him. I've got seven kids. Never in a million years did I dream I’d have to resuscitate any of them.

"When you're discharged, no one teaches you anything unless you go out of your way to find it. I don’t know what would’ve happened without that training - my son wouldn’t be here today."