Terrified mum shares heartbreaking warning after baby Callie cracked her head open – she’d turned round for split second

FOR new mums, keeping their baby safe is a top priority – making sure they sleep on their back in a cot, correctly installing a car seat for them, and ensuring they don’t choke when feeding.

After a horrific ordeal which led to her daughter fracturing her skull, Ashley Conley is now warning other mums of another danger to look out for – one involving a baby seat.

Ashley had to give her daughter Callie Conley life-saving CPR when she fractured her skull falling off the kitchen counter.

The 30-year-old had turned her back for a split second.

Ashley had placed Callie, who was nine months old, in a baby seat on their kitchen island while she prepared lunch and her husband Kyle Conley unpacked their food shopping.

She turned her back for a split second to put some pasta on to boil when she heard a thud.

The stay-at-home mum turned back to find her husband was running over and her daughter no longer up on the counter top, but on her back on their hardwood floor still in the seat.

The mum-of-three rushed to pick her daughter up but as she held her, Callie began to have a seizure, with her eyes rolling back and frothing at the mouth.

Things got even worse when Callie stopped breathing after the convulsion and Ashley had to perform CPR on her own baby.

Thankfully, while Ashley was picking Callie up, Kyle, 31, had called the emergency services and an ambulance arrived at their house within two minutes.

Paramedics took over CPR and once Callie began breathing again Ashley went with her to Cincinnati Children’s hospital in Ohio, US, where a scan revealed she had fractured her skull.

Ashley took to TikTok on January 3, six months after the accident in June last year, to raise awareness – and her video has been viewed more than three million times.

She is now bravely sharing her story as a warning to others as she admits she regularly put baby seats on the counter top and “didn’t think anything of it”.

Ashley, from Batavia, Ohio, US, said: “It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, it was horrible.

“It was awful. When she started the seizure, I had never seen one before. Her eyes rolled back and she was convulsing and starting to foam out of her mouth.

“When I first saw that I thought, oh my gosh, I’ve caused her horrible brain damage and then when she stopped breathing, I thought that she was dying. I thought that she was about to die on our floor.

“I had gotten her to take one breath while I was giving her CPR and then they (paramedics) situated her head for her airway to be more open. I think they gave her a few breaths and then she was breathing normally.

“They took towels and stabilised her neck because they were not sure if her neck had broken so I was not allowed to touch her after they got there.

“It was really tough to not be able to hold her. It was the worst day of my life.

“I felt very embarrassed and ashamed that I put her up there and had her fall. I had never really shared that with anybody and I never intended to because I didn’t want the judgement.

“But I have seen it so commonly on TikTok where people have their kids up on the counters just like me, I didn’t really know the dangers of it. I think a lot of people don’t know the danger of it. I wanted to inform people.

“I wanted to share it and hope that people see it and hope that it would make some changes.

“This is our third child, we did it with our two sons, nothing bad ever happened so we just kind of didn’t think that was a possibility.

“We just didn’t think anything of it. We had done that often and never thought anything about it. I stepped away, not even a foot away from her, to put pasta in boiling water and I heard a thud and my husband was running over to the island.”

I was just begging God to save her.

Ashley Conley

After medics got her breathing, Callie was unconscious for the ambulance drive.

Ashley said: “I was just begging God to save her. I was hysterical in the ambulance. They told me that they’d seen this before and it can go several different ways.

“They had mentioned sometimes it can be a coma, sometimes there can be damage to the brain and sometimes it can be fine.

“When they mentioned the brain damage, I went numb. I couldn’t handle the emotions and had my fingers on her head when they would let me and just cried.

“When I got there I was greeted by a chaplain so of course, I thought, oh my gosh, they’re not telling me that she’s going to die.

“She was extremely confused and screaming. I was right above her and she did not recognise me. She was looking past me, just kind of glazed over. Definitely confused, they told me that’s normal after a grand mal seizure.”

At the hospital Callie was fitted with a brace in case she had broken her neck and was taken for a CT scan to check for a brain bleed.

Fortunately the scan showed Callie had no bleeding on the brain, but she had suffered a fracture above her ear on her left parietal bone, something doctors told Ashley would heal on its own.

The start of ‘terrifying’ seizures

Since the accident Ashley said Callie, who is now 15 months old, has had further seizures and doctors are still investigating what could be causing them.

Ashley said: “About four months later on November 20th we were playing and all of a sudden she was not able to sit up any more, she just kind of fell limp to the ground and I thought she was trying to be funny or something like that.

“My husband saw her and said something looks weird with her eyes and picked her up and when he picked her up she was completely limp in his arms.

“Her eyes rolled back as he handed her to me and she began to have another grand mal seizure.

“It was terrifying and it was seemingly out of nowhere. We called the ambulance again. She did not stop breathing the second time but it was about four-and-a-half minutes long.

“They said hopefully it was a febrile seizure, we’re sending you home with a rescue medication in case she has more that go for that long.

“About two weeks later she had an absent seizure. She’s had three of those.

“They [the doctors] say they’re not related to the fall. I believe they are just because she never had a seizure before that.

“If she continues to have them then we’ll do genetic testing and a longer EEG to check for any epilepsy that may have been missed.

“She’s great. She’s fully developmentally fine. They say traumatic brain injuries can cause some developmental issues. She hasn’t had any.

“She’s talking really well, she’s on track for everything. Other than the seizures after the fall she was back to herself and hasn’t changed at all since then.”

Don’t think it can’t happen to you.

Ashley Conley

Ashley is now hoping to discourage other parents from positioning baby seats at a height.

Ashley said: “Don’t think it can’t happen to you. I never thought something like this in my life would happen. I’m a stay at home mom, I care so deeply about my children and it just takes one second.

“A lot of people have shared their stories with me where they didn’t get to bring their baby home from the hospital like I did. It’s just not worth the convenience of having them next to you to put their lives at risk.”

Manufacturers of similar baby seats warn to always keep the child in view while in the seat and never to leave them unattended.

Most are listed as ‘floor seats’ and state they should never be use on an elevated surface.