‘I Thought I’d Lost My Little Boy’

Juleah Sessom could not hold back the tears as she thanked the group of paramedics who saved her young son Dax. Were it not for them the tears would have been from sadness instead of joy.

“It was the scariest moment of my life. There were about 10 guys around him. He was just laying there,” she recalled of the moment on Jan. 19 when 20-month-old Dax went into cardiac arrest after choking on a pecan.

“We just started praying and praying. We will always be grateful for God’s grace, giving us a second chance at life, and to celebrate the heroes here tonight.”

Twenty-month-old Dax Sessom with his parents, Dani (left) and Juleah. Dax was rescued by Parker County EMS team members in late January after having …

Juleah and her wife Dani were at the headquarters of the Parker County Health Services District on Thursday, Feb. 28, to recognize and show gratitude to the members of the PCHD Emergency Services Team who rescued Dax. They presented each with a special medal/coin as a thank you, and Dax gave each a fist bump as they one by one stopped to visit with him in a much more relaxed atmosphere than before.

“Everything you did that day, I can’t thank you enough,” Juleah said.

Typical day, until...

The day was like any other day in the lives of the Sessom family, which also includes Dax’s twin siblings Royer and Amberli, both 6, and 17-year-old sister Baillie. The family lives in Willow Park, the twins attend McCall Elementary School in Aledo and Baillie attends Aledo High School and is a member of the wrestling team.

But things became frightening in a hurry, Dani explained. Juleah was at work and she was at home with the three youngest children when Dax came in from outside, coughing and having trouble breathing.

“He threw up twice and during one of those moments he must have inhaled and aspirated,” she said. “He was completely blue.”

Dax was choking on a piece of pecan.

Dani scooped him up and rushed him to the Parker County EMS station. The paramedics tended to him immediately, after which he was taken by ambulance to Cook Children’s Medical Center, where he stayed for three days.

“Her heroic efforts, and it was an act of God the guys were there and not out on call,” Juleah said.

Today, Dax is back to bouncing around and enjoying life, no after-effects at all, Dani said, something of a miracle in itself, she said. He went several minutes without oxygen.

“It was due to their fast response that my baby’s alive today,” Dani said.

In the minority, thankfully

Skipper Bertrand, a doctor with the PCHD, said an average of 975 people every day suffer a cardiac arrest in the United States. According to the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation around 90 percent of those are fatal.

Thanks to the paramedics on hand that day, Dax is in the 10 percent survival rate.

“It was a tremendous resuscitation and focus by these guys,” Bertrand said. “They were jolted from relaxing to jumping into EMS.”

Remember, unlike most calls where the paramedics come to the site, Dani took Dax to them.

“It’s (cardiac arrest) one of the toughest situations we face, and these guys responded amazingly,” Bertrand said. “They truly are heroes.”

Working to save many

Jim Backus, Director of Parker County EMS, pointed to a chart on the wall designed to commemorate those who have been rescued from a cardiac arrest. The chart is in the form of a plane, complete with a seating outline. Survivors sign their name on a seat.

Being less than 2 years old, Dax could not, of course, do this alone. With the help of his moms, however, he put his name on there for all to see.

“We always look at that and say, ‘That’s why we do what we do,’” Backus said.

The reason for the plane design came from an idea out of the mind of Tom Bouthillet, former EMS Director in Hilton Head, South Carolina. He patterned it after Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and the time he landed his plane on the Hudson River in New York in 2009 after a flock of geese flew into an engine. His heroics saved the lives of all the passengers and crew onboard.

“Our goal is to fill that plane (on the wall) with survivors,” Bertrand said. “If we can fill a plane with cardiac arrest survivors, maybe we can get more attention and save more people.”

Life goes on

Like any toddler, Dax did not want to be still for much of the ceremony. No one bothered much to stop him, though. They were all happy to see him being feisty and having fun.

The alternative and his absence, it’s not something anyone chooses to focus on, other than as a reminder that he is still around to love and hold.

“It’s a very big reminder of just how precious life is,” Dani said. “I thought I’d lost my little boy.”