A terrified Long Island mother’s quick-thinking — though heart-wrenching — decision saved her toddler son’s life this summer and ultimately uncovered the extraordinarily rare condition he suffers from.
“Imagine breathing through a milkshake straw, then a regular straw, and finally a coffee stirrer,” said Maria Carlin, 36, recalling her 4-year-old son Jack’s terrifying ordeal in late July.
“We reached a point where I thought, ‘It can’t get any higher-pitched… I know what comes next.’ And then his breathing just stopped.”
Maria Carlin and her son Jack stand outside Huntington Hospital — where a dedicated team of doctors and nurses saved the 4-year-old’s life in July after he abruptly lost the ability to breathe.
Carlin, a nurse at North Shore University Hospital, had rushed her previously undiagnosed son into the car after he spent the night crying in agony without “a single symptom of anything.”
Halfway through the 10-minute drive, Jack suddenly stopped breathing — forcing Carlin into an unthinkable choice: pull over to start CPR or race straight to the hospital.
She chose to keep driving, knowing CPR alone wouldn’t be enough and that Jack needed rapid intubation and other emergency interventions only the ER could provide.
“I heard him slump over. I went to look back, and God said, ‘Maria, don’t look back. You made your decision. You’re not going to be able to handle seeing him right now,’” she recalled, her voice breaking.
“Knowing you have a child in the back seat who isn’t breathing and needs CPR — and not doing it — I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
Carlin made the critical choice to continue driving Jack to the hospital rather than stopping on the side of the road to perform CPR.
She laid on her horn as she pulled up to the ER entrance, where a team of doctors and nurses immediately rushed to Jack — now in cardiac arrest and without a heartbeat.
“I just saw this lifeless kid who had no pulse, who looked blue,” said emergency-room physician Dr. Jennifer Gibb, who sprinted to help after hearing Carlin “screaming.”
“I didn’t know she was a nurse at the time,” Gibb added. “I heard her saying, ‘Come on, Jack,’ and that’s my son’s name. It sends chills through your spine when you’re helping this little child who could be your own,” she said, referring to her own 11-year-old.
After nearly 10 minutes of resuscitation, Jack’s pulse finally returned.
“I can’t even explain what that feeling is like when you know that your child’s heart is beating again,” Carlin said.
Jack was later diagnosed with a laryngeal cleft — a condition in which mucus or fluid can obstruct airflow.
A few hours after being stabilized, he was transferred to Cohen Children’s Medical Center.
“I’ve been working here for 13 years, and I’ve only seen a pediatric arrest like that maybe five times,” Gibb said.
Further testing confirmed the laryngeal cleft, a defect that affects an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 newborns each year, according to Northwell.
“It’s an abnormal opening in the back of the voice box that separates the voice box from the esophagus,” explained Dr. Lee Smith, Cohen’s chief of pediatric otolaryngology.
Jack’s rare condition affects only between 10,000 and 20,000 births each year, making it an “extremely uncommon” disorder in which mucus or fluid can obstruct airflow.
According to Smith — who later performed Jack’s corrective surgery without complications — the boy’s crisis was even more extraordinary than the diagnosis itself.
“I’ve never seen that before… This was an extremely unusual and severe presentation,” Smith said of the moment Jack lost nearly all of his airway.
Carlin credits the frontline staff at Huntington Hospital with saving her son’s life.
Today, Jack is a happy, healthy pre-K student who, along with his mom, dad and siblings Luke and Emma, is part of a family profoundly grateful to the medical workers who made their happy ending possible.
“The survival rate of a child going into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital is terrifyingly low,” Carlin said.
“After everything happened, I turned to my husband and said, ‘We’re going to Disney World. This child is going to experience Disney World.’”
Jack told The Post he loved his vacation — and that he’s thrilled to be in pre-K.
The Carlin family recently returned from the Happiest Place on Earth, where Jack, his siblings and their dad, Stewart, soaked up all the magic they deserved after their harrowing midsummer ordeal.
“I really liked the Slinky ride,” Jack told The Post.
“And I love being in school.”
