Family movie night with popcorn is such a wonderful treat on the weekend. When I was a kid family movie night was usually on a Friday and we’d all gather around a huge bowl of freshly made popcorn.
I used to love making it to the bottom of the bowl where the really buttery, salty popcorn was.
But for one family, this much-loved ritual turned into a nightmare that they would never forget.
Nicole and Jake Goddard from Colorado, had settled on the couch with their three children to watch the classic comedy Mrs Doubtfire starring the late, great Robin Williams.
It was then that their youngest child Nash started choking and his dad Jake jumped into action ready to do the Heimlich maneuver.
‘Assumed he’d just swallowed it’
Thankfully he took a breath and the family thought he must have swallowed the popcorn that was stuck in his throat.
“We knew he was breathing, we did not see anything come out so we assumed he’d just swallowed it,” Nicole told Fox News.
But a few hours later his parents noticed something wrong with his breathing.
As the couple’s two older daughters had recently been sick, Nash’s parents assumed he may have caught something from them.
But he went from bad to worse and it wasn’t until Nicole contacted Nash’s pediatrician who advised her to get him to the emergency room, that they realized the seriousness of the situation.
After the family’s terrifying ordeal Nicole took to Facebook to warn others and wrote:
“He (Nash) had a fever, so I gave him Motrin and put him to bed. A very long night with him and then his breathing looked a little labored to me and he just didn’t feel good. I called my pediatrician immediately and said Nash needs to be seen ASAP.
“At 6pm they put Nash under and performed the procedure (a Bronchoscopy). I paced and cried the entire time my little man was in surgery… He had aspirated popcorn into his lungs when he choked. The body recognized it as a foreign object and put puss pockets around it. All the inflammation caused him to develop pneumonia in his left lung.”
Nicole said 6 pieces of popcorn were removed from Nash’s lungs and there was so much inflammation the doctor wasn’t sure if he’d removed it all so the procedure had to be repeated two days later.
The doctor told Nicole how popcorn was not supposed to be given to children under five.
‘Don’t pay close attention’
She said,”I got a lecture of course on how popcorn isn’t supposed to be given to anyone under 5. I hate to use the excuse he’s our third child so I overlook and don’t pay as close attention to the dos and donts as we did with our first.”
She shared the post on Facebook because she wanted to warn other parents of the dangers of giving popcorn to smaller children.
Her post has been shared 140,000 times.
I had no idea you weren’t supposed to give popcorn to children under 5 and from the comments on Nicole’s post I’m not alone.
Please share to warn others about the potential dangers of this common kids’ snack. It could save someone from going through what poor little Nash had to endure.
