Pre-teen credited with saving dad`s life
June 29--Monday seemed like an ordinary day for 11-year-old Charlie Baggett as he rose from bed to start the day, but things changed quickly when he headed toward the bathroom and found his father going into diabetic shock.
At about 11 a.m. Charlie saw his dad, Ken, 54, stumbling out of the bathroom, sweating profusely, shaking and unable to speak.
"I thought, OK, what's going on here, what should I do," Charlie said. "I thought his blood sugar was either low or he's having a stroke."
With no other adult in the house at the time, Charlie went to his dad and tried to communicate with him but dad was unresponsive. Charlie was fairly certain that Ken was suffering from low blood sugar, so he went to the kitchen and grabbed chocolate milk and chocolate candy for him. But Ken's hypoglycemia was so severe, he was unable to drink or eat.
"You can't panic, because then everything goes out of your mind," Charlie said. "I didn't panic."
Charlie called his aunt for help and together they tested Ken's blood sugar, which measured a dangerously low 35 mg/dL. By the time an emergency medical team arrived at the Baggett house, Ken's reading was down to 23 mg/dL. The EMTs immediately set up a glucose IV to raise it to a "normal" range, between 90 and 110.
Charlie's mom and Ken's wife, Valerie, suggested Ken could have died if his blood sugar fell below 20 mg/dL.
"(Charlie) saved his father's life," she said. "I'm just so proud and impressed at how calm he was able to stay; he was able to give (the police) directions and (the EMT's) all his father's medical information."
Charlie doesn't see what he did as grand -- he thinks it's normal, considering he has grown up knowing all about his dad's medical issue.
"I'm kind of used to this situation," he said. "This isn't the first time and it hasn't been the lowest he's ever been."
According to his parents, the first time Charlie helped his dad through hypoglycemia, he was only 3 years old. Ken says the toddler wasn't fully aware what he was doing, he just listened when dad told him to grab his Easter candy, so the two of them could "share" it, and call grandma.
Copyright 2016 - Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, N.Y.
