Rookie Police Officer Comes to the Aid of Choking Newborn: 'He Saved My Baby's Life'
When you’re a new parent, there are so many things to keep track of. Hidden dangers are lurking around every corner — and those are just the known dangers: New ones crop up all the time.
Parents Joe and Katelin Chronister of Pottsville, Arkansas, had the scare of their lives on May 29 when they learned that a baby can choke on anti-gas drops. They had given their 3-week-old son, Grady, some of the drops — and things quickly went south.
At first, everything seemed to be going well, but then Grady started to choke. He then began to turn purple, according to WOFL-TV.
When fellow parent and rookie officer Cody Hubbard with the Pottsville Police Department got the call, he said he was “freaking out” and spent the whole drive preparing the best he could: by desperately praying for help.
The officer told KLRT-TV that he recalled asking “pretty much for the Lord to be on my side on this one.”
When he arrived, body camera footage shows Hubbard taking the infant and starting to try to clear his airway as the panicked family looked on helplessly.
“We were trying everything, and it seemed like he, you know, he knew exactly what to do,” dad Joe Chronister said.
“Got him breathing and got him crying, which is a good thing, and, you know, he saved my baby’s life.”
“A normal day went to a chaotic day in a matter of seconds,” Hubbard said.
“When a family is depending on you like that, you know, the pressure hits.”
The gravity of the situation and relief at the success certainly hit the 23-year-old cop once he got back into his vehicle.
“I started kind of just bawling, you know, because it, it felt good to, to see how that turned out,” he explained. “Mentally, I just broke down. You know, I was crying, but it was happy tears, you know.”
“As an officer you never know what is ahead of you for the day, it can go from 0 to 100 in the blink of an eye,” the Pottsville Arkansas Police Department shared on Facebook.
“Last Saturday Officer Hubbard went above and beyond to save a little life, thank you Officer Hubbard for your quick response. This is what we are all about!”
The whole episode was especially meaningful to Hubbard, since he’d had a similar incident with his own daughter. For his heroics, he will be receiving an award — but perhaps the best reward is that the new parents have their child back safe and healthy.
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