Part of being a parent is having to let your ‘baby’ go to learn things for themselves and let them make their own mistakes, but one Massachusetts mom’s worst nightmare came true when she got a frantic message that her daughter was unconscious.
When Melissa Aho’s 15-year-old daughter Ryleigh asked to go to the movies and sleep at a friend’s house on a Saturday night, she said yes like almost any other parent would have. “I said yes,” Melissa said. “She has always been very good about communicating with me and checking in with me. But her plans changed that night and the series of events that followed are nothing that any family should have to experience.”
At 1 am, Melissa got a Facebook message from a friend who said that they had received a call and been told that Ryleigh was passed out. “Immediately my heart sank and I tried to call her phone repeatedly and of course there was no answer. I questioned who, where, when, why’s…and received no answer back,” Melissa wrote in a Facebook post, which has since gone viral.
What Melissa didn’t know at the time, was that the person who messaged her was on their way to find Ryleigh and the girl who had reached out for help. By the time they arrived at Aho’s driveway, Ryleigh was completely unresponsive, bleeding from her eye, and foaming at the mouth. Melissa called 911, and when they arrived at the hospital, the 92-pound girl had a blood alcohol level of .28, which is only .02 away from levels that cause death, and was not breathing on her own.
“I suffered 14 long hours pleading and begging for my daughter’s life, experiencing flashbacks from the moment she was born, to her first smile and giggle, the first time she said Mumma, her first step, her 1st birthday, her first day of school,” Melissa remembers.
Miraculously, Ryleigh opened her eyes 14 hours later, and while the alcohol took a few days to fully leave her system, she was alive and is expected to make a full recovery. However, Melissa knows this could have gone very differently if that one girl had decided, like the others they were with, not to get help out of fear of getting in trouble.
“I’m sharing our experience so that EVERY TEEN who may come to be in this situation knows….you will NOT get in trouble for getting someone help!!!! You have the ability to SAVE a precious life!!!!! So please reach out and get help no matter what the circumstances,” said Melissa to urge parents to share her story with their children. “That one girl SAVED my daughters life by contacting someone who could get ahold of me and if it were not for her the reality of it is I would be burying my daughter this week.”
“Don’t ever think this couldn’t happen to you because it is very real and it’s everywhere!!! Our pictures of her may be disturbing to some but our hopes are in sharing our pain we may be able to PREVENT AND SAVE ANOTHER CHILD!!!”
How would you react if you got a message like that about your child? Let us know what you think in the comments below, and please SHARE this with parents and friends on Facebook to help spread Melissa’s warning.
[Featured image: Facebook/Melissa Aho]
Mom Warns Others After 15-Year-Old Nearly Dies From Popular Teen Drink is an article from: LifeDaily