Vandergrift mom credits youth football coach with saving her baby's life

Whatever miracles a Kiski Valley youth football coach might perform in leading his team to victory this season will pale in comparison to the action he performed Monday afternoon just outside the Vandergrift field where his team was practicing.

Quick action by Kristian Clayton, 45, of Vandergrift saved the life of a 10-month-old baby boy, James Alexander Toth V, who had a plastic soda pop cap stuck in the back of this throat, blocking the tot’s breathing, according to the boy’s mother, Rebecca Toth of Vandergrift.

“He saved my baby’s life. Oh God, he definitely saved his life,” Toth said Tuesday from the porch of her Jackson Avenue home, across from the Kennedy Park ball field where Clayton had his team in summer camp training.

“He was limp, not moving,” Toth said when she ran out onto her porch and started screaming for help multiple times, saying her baby was not breathing.

Her screams caught the attention of Clayton and his assistant coach, Kyle Harris, who had difficulty at first trying to locate the source of the screams. Jackson Avenue runs parallel to the field and is crowded with two blocks of houses, several with multiple apartments.

Clayton said he sprinted from the ball field to an opening in a wooden fence, where he met the mother holding her baby.

A veteran who served as a medic in the Air Force, Clayton said his training kicked in and he performed 10 compressions on the baby’s back to dislodge the cap.

He used his finger to try to dislodge the cap from the windpipe, but with no luck. A second time he was able to drag the cap with his finger and moved it to the other side of the throat, where he was able to push it out.

“As soon as I got it out, the baby started screaming and she (Toth) fell back onto the fence in relief,” said Clayton, a Peoples Gas employee who said he has had refresher first aid training for jobs he has held.

Harris, of Allegheny Township, said Clayton went into “Dad mode,” telling the baby that, “I am going to take care of you” and assuring the mother.

“It was the greatest sound ever — hearing the baby screaming and crying,” Harris said.

Toth explained the ordeal began when she was having lunch with the baby and he picked up the plastic cap from a soda pop bottle and quickly put it in his mouth.

He gasped, and Toth said she put her fingers in the baby’s mouth and could touch the edge of the cap, but her repeated efforts only pushed it back farther into his throat. The edge of the cap cut his mouth, causing him to bleed.

After what seemed like a minute of desperately trying to get the cap out, Toth said she ran onto her porch and started screaming for help.

Clayton and Harris said it was a miracle of sorts that they were even at the field that afternoon. They normal practice in the evenings, but this week is for football camps for sixth, seventh and eighth graders.

“On any other week, there is no one at the field” in the afternoon, Harris said.

“It was definitely, definitely a blessing that we were there and just reacted,” Clayton said.