iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — New York Police Department officers are being hailed as heroes after they saved a baby Saturday night out at Coney Island.
Michael Pace, 26, and Joseph Doyle, 26, were waiting at a red light when Caroline Ivanov came rushing to their patrol car, banging on it, begging for help, authorities said. Ivanov’s daughter, Chloe, wasn’t breathing.
“The baby was blue-ish tint. She wasn’t breathing. A lot of bubbles out of her mouth,” Pace told reporters at a Monday press conference.
The officers called for an ambulance but were told it would take eight minutes to arrive.
Four blocks away were Lt. Patrick King and Officer Daniel Newman, a certified EMT. They responded immediately.
Newman told reporters he jumped in the back of the patrol car with Chloe and her mother, and the officers rushed them to Coney Island Hospital. Newman said he couldn’t feel a pulse.
“As we were pulling into the driveway of Coney Island Hospital, I was about to do mouth-to-mouth when the baby coughed up in my face, started to cry a little bit,” Newman told reporters. “I didn’t expect to get the baby back, in the backseat.”
The baby was handed off to the nurses, and the color began to return to her face after she began crying, the officer said.
The mother appeared relieved but was being cautiously optimistic, the officers said. She contacted Newman and said the baby was doing better, saying that a fever led to a seizure, which limited the girl’s breathing and caused her respiratory arrest.
“I felt like I knew him for an eternity,” Ivanov told ABC New York station WABC. “I don’t even know the guy’s name, you know. It’s like this great immense sense of trust that I had put in this stranger, and in the end it really paid off.”
“It was a really scary situation,” Doyle said, “but everyone responded really well, especially Officer Newman.”
Copyright © 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.