It was any paramedic’s nightmare.

A baby not breathing!

This is the type of job that starts the adrenaline pumping through your veins, from start to finish.

The call stated that the baby was blue, and not breathing. This is what we call a code 2 (cardiac arrest).

Well we planted the foot on the accelerator, and took off into the morning. It was the type of job that was uncomfortable at any time, let alone at the last hour in a 12 hour shift.

The address given, was in a block of units on the outskirts of Blacktown, only a quick 6 minute drive under lights and siren from the station. The IC car was just behind us, on the run out to the address fortunately, as they can provide some more advanced airway support, as well as a better pharmacology if it was an actual arrest situation.

As we pulled up outside the apartment door, there was a very distressed woman waiting for us. She had a dishevelled appearance, with lank hair, tattoos visible along the entire surfaces of her exposed arms, wearing track suit pants and a black singlet top. Not exactly uncommon for the area she lived in.

All four of us grabbed the necessary equipment from our vehicles and headed toward the door, where the woman ushered us into the apartments’ lounge room.

There, lying on the lounge in front of us was the baby. The first thing we noticed was the colour of the little girl.

She had the mottled complexion of someone who had been dead for some time. To get idea of what that looks like, it appears similar in nature to the colour your arm would become if you were to apply a tourniquet for 10 minutes. The skin becomes reddened initially, with a bluish tinge, then it begins to develop splashes of white skin, where the blood is draining away.

The signs present, indicated that she had been in this state for at least an hour. There also seemed to be present, a small amount of blood coming from her mouth, which had crusted at the right side of her lip.

I checked her pupils, and they were fixed and dilated with no response to the light that I had shined into them. A good indication would have been for them to have contracted equally when I shined the torch on them, but alas, no response. This indicated that there was little or no, function by the brain at that stage. However, she was still warm to the touch.

There was no use in trying to resuscitate her. It was too late.

A male in the house that identified himself as the father of the child, was trying to tell us that the baby was crying, turned blue and stopped crying just moments before the call was made to triple zero for help. We all knew that the baby had been in that condition for a lot longer time, however it just didn’t make sense that the baby was still relatively warm.

The father himself, appeared as though he hadn’t washed in days and reeked of cigarette smoke. He had evidence of recent needle use on his arms, with red and partly swollen marks near the inside of his elbows. It seemed as though he was a user of injectable substances. Another thing of note, was a very small blood stain on his T Shirt, located near his left breast.

He stated that he fell asleep on the lounge, with the baby, nursing her, and she woke him up by crying, and that was when he noticed that she was blue in colour. This didn’t seem to make sense, as she wouldn’t have been crying, as she had been dead for some time to be in the condition she was in now.

I decided to take a quick look at the lounge where he had been laying. I don’t know why I did it, but I’m glad that I did. There was a small trace of blood on the lounge, where the baby would have been laying. It was starting to look less like the fathers’ recollection of events was accurate.

The police arrived on scene, which was good, as I was starting to get uncomfortable talking to the parents, because their stories didn’t seem to match, or make sense. I asked them if they had injected any drugs recently, to which they quickly denied, however, they did admit to taking their methadone yesterday evening.

It was beginning to look like the inconsistencies were pointing towards the baby being smothered by the father while he was sleeping off his methadone during the night.

I mentioned this to the police, who were very interested in my observations, and they then decided to question him a little more closely on his version of events.

It was at this time, that the mother developed breathing difficulties allegedly, and stated that she was having an asthma attack. My partner opened up our oxyviva, took out a nebuliser mask, and some Ventolin, loaded the Ventolin into the nebuliser, and turned on the oxygen supply. She then placed the mask onto the womans face, to treat her for some very mild wheezing. It seemed there was more of an emotional response to the events, that actual asthma. It was then that she dropped the bombshell.

The mother turned to the father, and said, ”I told you not to sleep with her on the lounge after your hit”. To which he replied, “fuck off c#nt”. The loving couple were finally communicating.

This seemed to be a more credible story, about what probably transpired that night.

As it turned out, the police then turned the lounge room area into a crime scene from that point on, and the father was escorted outside, away from the wife. It was necessary to keep them separated from that time on so they couldn’t converse with each other, and create a story.

It is sad to think that the young baby had her life cut short by a stoned parent, rolling on top of her while they slept. So sad.

We never did find out if there were ever any charges laid on either of two parents in relation to the death of the little girl.