A NEW group is being set up in Wellington to support parents of children with asthma following a near-fatal attack suffered by three-year-old Jake Burns.

Beat Asthma will work with national charity Asthma UK to deliver advice and other support to help parents understand the variety of symptoms an attack can display and what they can do if it happens.

Jake’s parents, Darren and Alice Burns, of Aspin Road, Wellington, want to help others avoid the trauma they suffered when they almost lost their son last month.

An account of Jake experiencing ‘silent chest’ together with a video clip of him in hospital fighting for his life has been posted as a case study on Asthma UK’s website and has attracted more than 150,000 views.

Now, Mr and Mrs Burns are to raise funds to cover the cost of First Aid courses for parents and will also organise monthly Beat Asthma support meetings.

Mrs Burns has run Project Wrapped Up for the past two years, providing children’s Christmas presents for vulnerable families working with Action for Children.

She said: “After I have completed this year’s work on Project Wrapped Up, we will turn our efforts to running Beat Asthma in the New Year.

“Jake is our complete motivation in this and if we can help just one other family then something good will have come out of what we have been through.

“We have chosen to fund First Aid courses because had we not taken Jake to hospital when we did, Jake would not be here today.

“We want to be prepared for if this happens again when we are not in the hospital. Should we have to do CPR, we want to be as prepared as possible.

“Sharing our story is all we have to offer and the only way we can raise awareness of what happened to our family in the hope that we may be able to stop it happening to others.

“There were prevention measures that we did not have in place, and we have learned the very important fact that every child is different, and we now know a lot more about how Jake’s asthma attacks begin and how he shows uncommon symptoms.

“We are still learning and want to learn as much as we can, so this campaign is our small way of fighting to beat asthma.”

Beat Asthma is already being supported by local business Carly Press and Mrs Burns has also been asked to talk to Somerset College pupils in Taunton, who are studying on an Early Years course.