A Maryland cop found himself in the right place at the right time this past Sunday, and is now credited with saving the life of a nine-month-old baby.
It started as a routine traffic stop; Montgomery County police officer James Herman pulled over a woman for driving too fast down I-270 Sunday afternoon. Then his day took a sudden turn.
Herman says he looked up to see a man running towards him screaming for help, the look of fear in his eyes so intense that Herman told the Washington Post he assumed the man was being chased.
That’s when he noticed the baby being held in the man’s arms. Her eyes had rolled into the back of her head, foam was coming out of her mouth, and she was beginning to turn blue.
“She’s not breathing,” the man said as he handed over the baby to Officer Herman.
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Herman immediately began administering chest compressions using two fingers while he radioed for an ambulance. A Good Samaritan pulled over to assist Officer Herman, and together they administered first aid to the unresponsive little girl.
“It was amazing how fast the baby came back,” Officer Herman told NBC News4 in Washington. “The eyes came back. The baby became responsive, tracking our fingers.”
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The young girl in question, nine-month-old Kenzlee Mae Cushman, was on her way home to Charles Town, West Virginia with her grandparents when she suddenly became unresponsive.
The couple spotted Officer Herman stopped on the shoulder in the vicinity of Gaithersburg, Maryland, and out of desperation pulled over to see if he could save young Kenzlee’s life.
“If that child makes a full recovery, it’s only because of the quick actions of that officer and the wherewithal of the family to stop,” Montgomery County Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief Stephen Mann told the Washsington Post.
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Kenzlee was rushed to Shady Grove Medical Center for further treatment, and is said to be “doing great” according to her father James Cushman.
The Good Samaritan who stopped to aid Officer Herman was eventually identified as Brody Channell, an off-duty firefighter with the Little Rock, Arkansas Fire Department.
He was on his way back from Mayrland after attending an event held by the National Fallen Firefighters Association to honour his father, himself a firefighter who died in the line of duty in 2014.
Reached by phone by local media, the equally modest Channell said it was a matter of good timing by everyone involved.
“I think it was meant to be. It was a right place, right time situation where I could assist the officer in what he was doing and save a life,” he said.
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