Pharmacist Praised for Helping Child During Febrile Seizure

A mother in the United Kingdom started to worry about her 13-month-old daughter when she noticed Mollie staring straight ahead in the car and not responding to her name.

Alex Rowland, who was also driving with her 3-year-old daughter Darcey in tow, pulled the car over and discovered that her baby’s legs were shaking, and she was grunting and foaming at the mouth, according to The Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser.

Wondering whether her baby was too hot, Rowland took off Mollie’s clothes and frantically considered what to do next. She figured her best bet was to get to her pharmacist.

In her urgent state, Rowland blocked the road with her car, ran in front of the large line of people waiting for prescriptions at Lloyds Pharmacy, and told the pharmacist that her daughter was having some sort of fit, The Advertiser reported.

“I basically threw her at the pharmacist, who shouted to his colleagues to call 999,” Rowland told The Advertiser. “…As a mum, I felt completely useless.”

Rowland thought her baby was dying, but pharmacist Iain Roxburgh realized the child was experiencing a febrile seizure, which can occur when children aged between 6 months and 5 years develop a high temperature.

“I had the baby, and I told one of my staff to ring the ambulance and the other one to bring a damp paper towel so I could bring the baby’s temperature down,” Roxburgh told The Advertiser. “Alex brought her other daughter in, so I was reassuring her that her little sister was going to be fine.”

The fit lasted 20 minutes, and the ambulance took about 5 minutes to get there, according to The Advertiser. Mollie’s temperature was lowered at the hospital, and she has almost fully recovered from the chest infection, which caused her fever.

“I feel so lucky that they were open,” Rowland told The Advertiser. “I think if it had happened at home, I would have been in such a state, and I don’t know what I would have done. He went way beyond the call of duty.”