She Goes To Check Out, But Cashier Notices 'Glazed Look' And Knows She Is In Trouble

Jun 04, 2021 by apost team

In this video from 2016, the cashier of a store in Colorado became a hero when she saved a baby from a potentially life-threatening situation. Rebecca Montano made an important decision only seconds before disaster struck, seconds before a mother was going to have a seizure.

Montano told the news channel, as you can see in the video below, that she had just been talking to the baby to get its attention when she noticed that the mother had a "glazed look over her face." The lady was not blinking or focusing her eyes on anything. Montano wasn't sure what was happening, but she was immediately nervous and began to ask the mother if everything was alright. When she didn't answer, she decided to grab ahold of the baby's arm to help if something were to happen.

Then it all started. The mother started vacantly looking around and trembling, losing her grip on the child. Montano quickly grabbed the child and immediately asked another customer for help before calling an ambulance. Even though Montano was able to reach the baby in time, she wishes she could have been able to help the mother as well. But while she managed to grab the lady's arm at first, the seizing customer slipped from her hold and tumbled to the floor. Thankfully, the ambulance responded quickly, and the 911 responder stayed on the phone with Montano until they arrived.

Unfortunately, the seizure was a bad one and kept going on until the paramedics arrived. However, the mother made it through the episode safe and sound.

"I'm hoping she will come in again sometime so I know she's alright," Montano wrote on Facebook, according to Denver7 News.

It turns out that she did return to the store some days later and explained that she had suffered from seizures all her life and was very grateful for Montano's quick reaction, Denver7 reports. Even small falls can prove dangerous for small children, and Montano made sure the little one wasn't hurt.

"The police said I did the right thing by taking the baby because if she had fallen with the baby it could have been really bad," Montano told Denver7.

Viewers on YouTube speculate that it seems like the mother tried to hold on as long as possible before the seizure took hold in order to keep her baby safe.

“I have seizures. The woman fought off her seizure until her baby was safe. Fighting off a seizure is one of the hardest things to do,” Brooklyn Wilson commented.

“She was fighting the blackness until her baby was safely out of her arms. And she succeeded. RESPECT,” another user added.

An article from WebMD explains that while there isn’t much you can do to stop a person from having a seizure once it starts, you can help to keep them safe. One of the most important things you should do to protect the person having the seizure is to make sure they are in a safe place. That means keeping people out of the way and moving hard or sharp objects away from their bodies. 

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Furthermore, it’s worth timing the seizure to see how long it lasts. If the seizure lasts more than 5 minutes or if the person is having trouble breathing or walking, then you should call 911.

According to WebMD, you shouldn’t put anything in the seizing person’s mouth — contrary to popular belief. If you try to insert something, you will likely get injured and the seizing person might damage their teeth.

The Colorado mom who had a seizure in 2016 was likely experiencing a grand mal seizure, which involves multiple parts of the brain at once. The seizure involves two phases, according to Mayo Clinic. The first phase, also known as the tonic phase, involves a loss of consciousness and sudden muscle contractions that cause the person to fall over, as we see in the video below. The second phase, known as the clonic phase, occurs when the person’s muscles violently contract for around one to two minutes.

“Grand mal seizures occur when the electrical activity over the whole surface of the brain becomes abnormally synchronized,” the article reads. “The brain's nerve cells normally communicate with each other by sending electrical and chemical signals across the synapses that connect the cells.”

“In people who have seizures, the brain's usual electrical activity is altered and many nerve cells fire at the same time. Exactly what causes the changes to occur often remains unknown,” the article continues.

Regardless of the seizure’s cause, it’s important to raise awareness surrounding seizures so bystanders — like the life-saving Rebecca Montano — know how to help.

Have you ever been in a similar situation as Montano? Let us know, and don't forget to pass this story on to a friend.