Ali and Trent Youngling met on a dating app and built a happy life together in Charlotte with their “fur babies,” as Ali affectionately called them. Emmie was a rescue mutt and Oliver a Morkie, a mix of Maltese and Yorkie. They were small dogs with sweet dispositions. Oliver weighed all of 18 pounds, and Emmie weighed even less.
In February 2023, Ali and Trent married and learned just 10 days after their wedding that they were expecting a baby. Ali’s love for research and planning kicked in. She devoured books about pregnancy and signed up for classes on infant care, including Novant Health’s virtual infant CPR class.
“My husband and I had teddy bears on our living room floor during the Zoom call and were going through all the motions of what to do if there was choking or unconsciousness,” Ali recalled. Her parents took the class at the same time, so the extended family rescued teddy bears together. “Never in a million years” did Ali think she would ever need to employ what she learned that day.
Only months later, Ali frantically used CPR combined with rescue breathing on her baby daughter, Addison. Addie had stopped breathing from a danger no one anticipated: Oliver the Morkie wanted to snuggle.
Sign up for an infant safety and CPR class.
“What have I done?”
Ali continued working as a mortgage lender during her pregnancy and had a “very joyful, easy delivery” at Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center in Charlotte. Addie was healthy and grew well each month. The dogs didn’t love the idea of the baby at first and barked when she cried. Gradually, the couple introduced Addie to them and picked up her hand to pet them. After a month the dogs were comfortable with this new member of the pack.
The baby was four months old in April on what began as a fun afternoon. Ali played with and cuddled Addie on the couch. When Addie fell asleep, Ali, like most moms, saw the baby’s nap time as a chance to get some quick chores done.
The family was planning a trip, and Ali needed to pack the car’s trunk. Trent wasn’t home. But Ali knew she would be gone from the living room only a minute at a time as she carried things to the car and came back for more. The baby dozed in a “sleeping suit” surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped pillow to prevent her from rolling off the couch.
All was fine for the first few minutes. But when Ali peeked into the living room to check on Addie again, this time Oliver was draped across Addie’s face and smothering her.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Ali heard herself scream. She ripped Oliver off the baby. Half of Addie’s face was a deep blue. The other half was pale white. Ali thought, “What have I done?”
Ali picked up her daughter. The baby’s head flopped back. Addie wasn’t breathing.
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Administering infant CPR
Ali remembered that CPR needs to be delivered on a firm surface. She placed her mouth over the baby’s mouth and nose to give her a few rescue breaths, as she’d been taught, then ran to the kitchen and set the baby on the countertop to administer CPR. “I started giving her chest compressions and called 911 with my other hand,” Ali says.
“What do I do?” she screamed to the dispatcher as she continued the CPR. Addie cried out once. The dispatcher heard and urged Ali, “She’s alive. Keep doing it.”
Addie gave one other big cry. Her eyes rolled back in her head, returned to normal, then rolled back again. Ali could hear firefighters arrive. She ran out the front door with the baby.
The firefighters administered oxygen but cautioned that Addie was extremely lethargic. They asked if she’d been without oxygen for more than four minutes. Ali assured them it hadn’t been that long. That was a positive sign, but Addie would still need to be sped to the hospital once the medics arrived. “I was on my hands and knees in our front yard, dry heaving and crying,” Ali recalled. Neighbors gathered to see if they could help.
Medics strapped Addie into a gurney while Ali called Trent. In shock, she could barely speak. Her neighbors had to take the phone to explain where Ali and Addie were going. In the ambulance, the baby lay completely still and stared, not reacting to anything. Ali rode with her and told her, “I love you. I’m so sorry.”
At the hospital, a trauma team rushed to treat Addie. Ali remembers a doctor yelling out, “Her chest – clear. Her genitals – clear. Her legs – clear.” Trent arrived by the time the doctors did an MRI and chest X-rays. Addie was acting more normally by now, crying at the tests and unfamiliar faces.
Watching her breathe
Everything looked OK, but the doctor wanted to monitor Addie for several hours to confirm there was no long-term damage. The doctor assured Ali that she had done the right thing by using CPR. Addie was going to be fine.
That night, Ali put her hand on Addie’s chest, watched her breathe, and told herself again and again, “She’s OK.” Ali was understandably upset with Oliver. Trent assured her that Oliver didn’t intend to hurt Addie. “He thought he was cuddling with her,” Trent said. “He might have thought he was protecting her.”
Over the next few days, Ali forgave Oliver, realizing the horseshoe pillow and sleeping suit together could have resembled a dog bed. There are several around the house and both dogs love to curl in them.
Now six months old, Addie shows no ill effects. She sleeps through the night, reaches for toys, can sit upright with help and is interested in the canines around the house.
Ali and Trent don’t leave her alone with Oliver and Emmie now. “When you think of an infant suffocating, you think of them being face down in a mattress, not a pet laying across their face,” Ali said.
She wants to share her story so that other parents and grandparents might know: Dogs could see a baby as a cozy place to snuggle.
Novant Health offers free health care education classes
Health care education is an important part of Novant Health’s work, said Sarah Ayoubi, a registered nurse and quality manager for the Novant Health Heart & Vascular Institute.
Infant CPR is just one of the maternity classes offered by Novant Health. Other classes include pregnancy yoga, childbirth preparation and newborn care. The unexpected emergency that happened to the Youngling family illustrates “why it’s important to recognize key symptoms and perform bystander CPR until help arrives,” Ayoubi said.
Novant Health also teaches hands-only CPR. Hands-only CPR doesn’t require breathing into the patient’s mouth as part of the technique. The focus is on chest compressions, calling 911, and getting an automated external defibrillator, if one is available.
If someone experiences cardiac arrest outside of a hospital, “their chance of survival is 10%,” Ayoubi said. But if they don’t get CPR, “the chance of survival definitely decreases.”
Ready to help save a life or learn another skill? Look up Novant Health’s classes here and search CPR or email handsonlycpr@novanthealth.org.
