Kerry gardaí lauded for saving seven-week-old baby from choking
Listowel Gardaí - Garda Ryan Hill and Garda Mark Cushen reunited with Baby Precious outside Listowel Garda Station
Three Kerry gardaí are to be commended for their efforts in saving a seven-week-old baby’s life in an upcoming ceremony.
The gardaí were nominated for the award by Athea woman Donna O’Loughlin, who is eternally grateful to the trio for saving her baby's life following a choking incident back in August.
The group were instrumental in ensuring the half-hour trip from Listowel Garda Station to University Hospital Kerry was complete within 10 minutes, with an emergency team waiting for them when they arrived.
In a statement from the Garda Commissioner, it said that Garda Mark Cushen, Garda Ryan Hill and Garda Eleanor Shiels will be recognised for their efforts and presented with awards in March.
The gardaí will be honoured at a commendations ceremony, which highlights incidents of "excellent work" carried out by members of the Kerry Garda Division.
Donna O’Loughlin says although the award is a positive step, she feels she will “never be able to repay them” for the kindness and compassion shown on August 17.
She is hopeful she can bring her baby Precious along to the ceremony, so her child can witness “her heroes getting an award aswell”.
In the months that followed the incident, Donna says her daughter has developed a unique bond with Garda Mark Cushen, who played a vital role in keeping her daughter alive on the night.
“Obviously she's only six months, she doesn't really react to people yet, but Mark was standing above me and she actually put her hands out for him and he picked her up.
“The way she reacts to him, she hasn't done it to anyone else yet,” she said.
“It was amazing to witness it."
The mother-of-three said the Listowel gardaí have maintained constant communication, checking on the mother and baby pair consistently since the night.
There is no doubt that Baby Precious will grow up knowing these Gardaí played an important role in her life, Ms O’Loughlin said.
Six months on from the events, Baby Precious has come on leaps and bounds, hitting all of her milestones with ease.
Although she has had further choking incidents in the meantime, no event has come near what happened in August, with the baby now on a strict diet for a severe dairy allergy and reflux disease to combat this.
“We had the best Christmas of our lives because we had her with us and it came so close to us not having her,”
“I just remember sitting there on Christmas Eve, watching her playing on her little mat, and I thought ‘I just can't thank these people enough’,” she added.
The gratitude felt by the O’Loughlin family knows no bounds, with the award lending some much-needed recognition to the hard workers.
Ms O’Loughlin said although the gardaí feel it is expected of their job, they went above and beyond the call of duty that night.
“Any guard would have probably answered my call and helped out,” she said.
“But I don't think they would have done it with the integrity and the absolute love that they did it with. Seeing [Garda] Mark [Cushen] in the back of that car, the way he held her and what he was doing with her, keeping her alive, I mean it was unique and the way [Garda] Ryan [Hill] drove and kept me laughing and joking in the height of my distress. I don't think another man could have had his personality either,” she added.
In the months following her recovery, Precious has become almost a local celebrity in the North Kerry area, Ms O’Loughlin said.
“I've had a lot of people wishing Precious well and loads of people want to meet her. They're all coming up saying ‘is that the baby from the paper, can we see her, can we talk to her?’,” she said.
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