A MOTHER has been hailed a heroine after twice saving the life of a four-week-old baby.

Despite having no practical knowledge of first-aid, mother-of-two Mrs Barbara Lloyd of Chadderton Drive, Unsworth, Bury, pushed through a crowd of onlookers to reach the tiny baby who had stopped breathing.

Taking Dominic Kelly from the arms of his distressed grandmother, Mrs Lloyd took swift action to breathe life into the child.

The toddler began to recover but within minutes stopped breathing for a second time, forcing Mrs Lloyd to continue mouth-to-mouth for half an hour until paramedics arrived.

The drama happened at Middleton Arndale where Mrs Lloyd works as a shop assistant at Robert Daniels Jewellers.

Following the incident Mrs Lloyd has received congratulations from scores of customers and was presented with a large bouquet of flowers by Arndale bosses.

According to Mrs Lloyd, a customer came into the shop and said that a child had stopped breathing and members of the public had gathered round with some crying for a first-aider. "I just ran out of the shop," explained Mrs Lloyd. "There were a lot of people about but no-one was doing anything. I just took the baby from a woman's arms, got him back to the shop and just started giving him mouth-to-mouth.

"I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing. I just wanted to get the baby breathing again. I know very little first-aid but I must have picked up some advice from television programmes."

Little Dominic was recovering from a severe bout of bronchitis and pneumonia and had been treated by a doctor on the morning of the drama.

His mother and grandmother regularly visit the Middleton shop and on Monday Dominic and his mother Lorraine called in to meet his rescuer.

"She was absolutely brilliant," said Mrs Kelly. "If it hadn't been for Barbara I don't know what would have happened.

"At first I thought Dominic was choking," she went on. "I was screaming but Barbara and a security guard just came over and picked him up."

Little Dominic, who was four weeks old at the time, spent five days in hospital suffering from bronchitis and pneumonia. He is now back in the family home in Middleton Junction.

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