Harrowing body cam footage shows Texas police chief saving baby who wasn't breathing at traffic light
A Splendora, Texas, police chief saved an unresponsive baby girl at a traffic light in a dramatic body camera video, which was released on Friday.
Police chief Rex Evans was on his way to a district campus when he pulled up to a red light. Then he heard the frantic honking of a car’s horn as a family drove near him.
The mother can be heard in the body cam footage screaming, “My baby’s not breathing!” before Evans quickly sprung into action, calling for an ambulance and performing CPR on the child.
“Come on, baby. Come on, baby,” he is heard saying, and a tense 30 seconds later, “It’s OK … she’s breathing. She’s breathing, OK … OK.”
The incident was captured on the police chief’s body camera, including when he climbed into the ambulance with the baby to explain to paramedics what occurred.
“When I saw the panic on everybody’s faces in the vehicle, I knew there was something very serious,” Evans told Click2Houston. Fortunately he was able to remain calm and handle the emergency.
According to Evans, when he first saw the baby, he noted the child was discolored (which could be a sign of not getting enough oxygen), and that the child’s eyes were rolled back into her head. “Within about a minute or so [of performing CPR,] the baby’s eyes rolled back forward, and she started immediately breathing and crying. It was just such a relief,” Evans told the news outlet.
Evans, who did not immediately respond to Yahoo Lifestyle’s requests for comment, is a third generation firefighter/law enforcement officer. According to the Splendora Independent School District, the police chief and his family have over 100 years of service as first responders.
When he accepted the job of Splendora chief of police, he said his primary objective was “to do my/our best to ensure every afternoon, every child, no matter who they may be, goes home safe, just like they arrived here in the morning.”
In helping to save the life of an infant, he clearly proved himself to be a man of his word.
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