JESSUP, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — An incredible story out of Lackawanna County a quick-thinking young boy took to social media to save his mother’s life during a medical emergency.
10-year-old Zach Kopa expected spending the night at his mom’s to be like any other, but at the end of the day he became her hero.
“If I were to wait 30 more minutes, like if he never said anything, I would have died,” said Kaitlin.
Kaitlin Kopa is a type one diabetic, she says she’s been sick before but never like the time in late October that nearly claimed her life.
“When I first got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes I was 11 weeks pregnant with him, that’s when I first went through DKA,” added Kaitlin.
DKA is Diabetic Ketoacidosis a complication with diabetes that can be life-threatening.
This time when Kaitlin went through DKA, she suffered from hallucinations, stomach pain, and severe vomiting that’s when Zach took to posting on Facebook as a cry for help.
“I just saw her lying on the couch, in total pain. really bad pain. a few minutes after I walked in she ran over there and then she just started throwing up everywhere,” explained Zach.
His Facebook post reached the right eyes and soon help was on the way.
“That like alerted someone to call the ambulance and then she was sent to the hospital,” says Zach.
But Kaitlin says her troubles were just getting started in the ambulance.
“They did not believe that I was in as much pain as I was expressing. It just kept getting worse and worse and worse, I was more dehydrated. They actually ended up intubating me and I went into a three-day coma,” continued Kaitlin.
When she came out of the coma, she quickly found out who her guardian angel was.
“Actually I went on Facebook and I saw his post and that’s when everyone was telling me that’s how they found out that they knew something was wrong because he wrote something on Facebook,” said Kaitlin.
Kaitlin says this isn’t the first time her son saved her life when she first experienced DKA while pregnant with him, he saved her.
”He was what was keeping me alive, they said I should have been in a coma when I was 11 weeks pregnant with him,” added Zach.
Even though Zach saved his mom’s life twice, he says she’s the one who saved him.
“It also felt like she saved the day for me after I saved the day for her,” says Zach.
Zach says as scary as the experience was, he was so happy to see his mom get the life-saving help that she needed.
By the way, November is National Diabetes Awareness Month.
