Off-duty cop saves baby Kit’s life

Nik McMillan feared her son Kit, who was just 11 weeks old, was going to die when he stopped breathing and turned blue.

But Rik Nicol, a police officer in Chorley, came to her aid and after giving rescue breaths, baby Kit started coughing and then crying.

Nik, 36, said: “PC Superhero is how he’s affectionately known by my friends. What he did was amazing.”

Nik was returning to her car in Buckshaw Village, after visiting Tiny Rockers children’s centre and Tesco.

She put her three-year-old son Rafe in the car and then noticed that Kit had turned blue and was not breathing.

She shouted for help from three people passing by, who rang 999 and tried to revive Kit.

Rik was sitting near a window at Tiny Rockers, on Ordnance Road, where his children William, four, and Matilda, two, were playing.

When he saw what was happening outside, he rushed out to help.

He took the baby into Tiny Rockers and after trying several different things, he started giving rescue breaths, with assistance from a 999 operator.

Nik said: “I was looking at him thinking I had only had my little boy for 11 weeks and he was gone already.”

Rik, who lives in Euxton, said: “I had to resuscitate him by doing some rescue breaths. After about three or four breaths, he started to have a little shudder.

“Just before I was going to start some compressions, he had a few coughs and slowly started to come round and cry, which was lovely.”

Paramedics arrived quickly and Kit was taken to Royal Preston Hospital.

Doctors found he had a bad form of a respiratory tract infection called bronchiolitis, which led to him not being able to breathe.

He was discharged from hospital after five days and is now back at home in Mellor, near Blackburn.

Nik contacted a police officer, who managed to track down Rik so she could thank him.

Last Monday - Rik’s 30th birthday - he received a call to say Kit was okay.

And on Thursday, Nik visited him with her husband Neil, 37, who runs accountancy firm McMillan And Co LLP in Buckshaw Village with his dad, and their sons.

Nik said: “To be in the right place at a pretty horrible time and with not just some someone who’s an off-duty police officer but someone with the presence of mind and kindness to run out and help was just amazing.

“I just haven’t got the words to express how grateful we are to him. I think we will be forever indebted to him.

“Every birthday, we will think that if it hadn’t been for Rik, he wouldn’t be here.”

Rik and Nik are both now encouraging people to have first aid training to help other people in future.

Nik is arranging a course at a baby group she attends in Blackburn and hopes play groups and other places will do training so parents can attend.

Rik has attended first aid training through his job and learned the importance of it from his mum Sue, who lives in Leyland and is a first aider.

He said: “I had support from the other people present and the ambulance service guy on the phone reminded me what to do and pointed me in the right direction.

“I feel anyone could do it, certainly with the assistance of the call taker because they do talk you through it.

“But it’s good to get yourself on a course of some sort. It’s really important. Simple things like putting those breaths in could save a life.”