THE experience of a three-year-old boy who nearly died during an asthma attack could help save other children’s lives.

Jake Burns was at death’s door after suffering ‘silent chest’ when his lungs filled with carbon dioxide and stopped working.

Fortunately Jake, of Aspin Road, Wellington, was already at Taunton’s Musgrove Park Hospital, where the emergency crash team revived him after several frantic minutes.

His parents, Darren and Alice Burns, are now sharing his story through national charity Asthma UK.

They want to encourage parents to seek urgent help if their children suffer an asthma attack and to try to help them identify less common symptoms.

Jake’s attack was aggravated by an infection, and his symptoms, including a cough, hunching of the shoulders, and sweating, did not appear too serious.

However, he spent nine days in hospital in two separate admissions before doctors were satisfied he was on the mend.

Mrs Burns said: “We’re just so thankful we didn’t wait any longer before getting Jake into hospital because otherwise he wouldn’t be here now.

“For a lot of the time, he didn’t seem too bad and we were giving him his medicine and inhaler, but then quite suddenly nothing we did seemed to help.

“We rang 999 for an ambulance and he actually perked up again after some oxygen and nebulisers in the ambulance. When we were in A&E he seemed fine.

“But then Jake began to sweat profusely and started to cough.

“We were rushed into the high dependency unit and I was holding Jake’s hand while he sat on my husband’s lap as he turned grey.

“He went unconscious and we laid him on the bed where he really started to fight for breath.

“The crash call was made to the intensive care team and a doctor listened to his chest and couldn’t hear anything.

“He was given a lot of medication through an intravenous drip, and as the team were getting ready to incubate, Jake opened his eyes.”

Asthma UK is using a brief video of Jake’s experience to promote the campaign.

Mrs Burns said: “If it helps educate just one parent on common and not so common symptoms, or gives just one parent confidence to seek help when their gut is telling them to, then we feel it’s worth sharing.”

Asthma UK marketing director Lindsay Gormley said: “We hope sharing this will help other parents of young children find out more about asthma and asthma attacks.

“It can be difficult to diagnose asthma in very young children so there may be parents whose children don’t even have a diagnosis of asthma who are watching this and who may find it helpful.”