New Jersey Transit police officers save life of 3-year-old
The child was part of a group of migrants coming from Texas. The boy is expected to be OK.
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What was supposed to be a normal night shift for New Jersey Transit police officers at the Trenton Transit Center turned into a day they will never forget.
Body camera footage from NJ Transit officers shows the moments they worked to save the life of a 3-year-old boy who was choking. Sgt. Michael Filandro and K-9 Officer Timothy Geoghegan say they were monitoring traffic on April 16 just before 10 p.m., when a private charter pulled up beside them.
The bus was full of migrants coming from Texas. Their final stop was in Trenton. That's when they say the toddlers' fathers came off the bus, holding the child and asking for help.
"When they handed the child over, it was unresponsive – unconscious, unresponsive. When we grabbed [him, he] actually kind of flopped into us, so that's why we kind of realized there was something wrong with their airway. We began the back blows and chest thrusts," said Filandro.
"You can kind of see the kid's status going downhill a little bit where he's starting to turn a little bit bluer, a little bit greyer,” says Geoghegan. “That's when the sergeant, we tried to get him down on the ground to try and perform CPR.”
"When we determined the baby still was not breathing, Officer Geoghegan and myself got in Officer Geoghegan's car and began CPR while en route to the hospital, recognizing that we didn't have time to wait for an ambulance to respond out," Filandro said.
But suddenly while en route to the hospital, the child started breathing.
"Officer Geoghegan and I each had a huge sigh of relief at that point...when we realized that the measures we took were successful," Filandro said.
When asked if they felt like heroes, they just said they were doing their job.
