US Cop Saves Two-week-old Choking Baby with Timely Action, Performed Heimlich Maneuver
A video shared by Danville VA police department shows officer Melissa Carey performing the Heimlich maneuver on the infant, who was later identified as Lucas Barreiro.
Officer Carey and the infant, who was taken to a hospital later. (Facebook/ @DanvilleVAPolice
A cop in the United States is being hailed for her timely action to save a two-week old baby from choking.
A video shared by Danville VA police department shows officer Melissa Carey performing the Heimlich maneuver on the infant, who was later identified as Lucas Barreiro.
Casually eating lunch-to saving a baby's life-all in the day's work of a law enforcement officer. Today Off. Melissa Carey rescued a two-week-old who was choking and had stopped breathing. The mother stated that, “If it was not for Off. Carey, my baby would not be here.” pic.twitter.com/hKWALL8TNr
— Danville VA Police (@DanvillePD) August 13, 2019
The infant’s mother Kalie Barreiro handed him to his great-grandmother Marilou Atwell and called 911 after noticing he had stopped breathing during lunch at a restaurant in California.
The Danville Register & Bee quoted Atwell as saying that all she could think at that time was: “Got to get him to breathe, got to get him to breathe.”
Carey sprang into action after she was alerted to the situation by restaurant staff.
Waitress Sally Scearce told WHSV 3 that she called out for Carey after seeing the family getting panicked over the situation.
"I yelled: "Melissa!"' Scerace said. 'That's all I could say."
Carey told WHSV 3 station that the only thing she could hear in the packed restaurant was a “woman's voice who was praying in the background and, I knew at that point, God had put me there at the right place and right time.”
After performing the Heimlich maneuver on Lucas, the infant was “able to vomit and spit up in my hand,” she said. “At that point, he was able to breathe on his own.”
The Heimlich maneuver is a first-aid procedure used to dislodge an obstruction from a person's windpipe.
She said as soon as she was called for help, her training kicked in.
“Muscle memory. You just go back to what you know,” the officer said.
The department also posted a picture of Carey holding the infant.
The infant’s mother said, “If it was not for Officer Carey, my baby would not be here,” according to the Danville VA police department.
The child and mother are doing well, Danville Police Department Lt Richard Chivvis told The Roanoke Times.
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