The mother of a child whose one-year-old was saved by police officers that rushed in to provide CPR described one officer as her “angel in blue.”
Jessica Salas said on April 6, she dialed 911 after her husband woke her up, telling her their daughter Kendall was not breathing.
"Little by little, her lips kept getting [blue], she was losing her breathing, her lips were trying to get purple and blue," said Salas.
Her husband found the child suffering from a violent seizure for an unknown amount of time. The seizures were so bad, Kendall was unconscious and her face and lips were blue. She said she prayed to God, asking for an angel.
"I prayed, God please send anybody, anybody to help me and that's when I heard Officer Carlson say, this is police," Salas said.
Officers Robert Carlson and Thomas McGrath were close to the home when they heard the call come in over the scanner. They rushed to the scene.
“The first thing you hear when you hear that call is, I just need to get there,” said Carlson at a press conference Monday. “Because we don’t know how long the baby hasn’t been breathing, we don’t know what the circumstances are, like most are calls we go to.”
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Carlson was first to arrive at the house, and McGrath came shortly after. Inside the house, the mother was crying and the dad was cradling Kendall in his arms, McGrath said.
Neither of them knew how to render aid, so the officers stepped in when they arrived.
"I remember Officer Carlson was like, ‘she's breathing, I can barely hear it but she's breathing,’ and I remember hugging the officer," Salas said.
The officer went with her to the hospital and waited for almost an hour for word that her daughter would be okay.
"He told the nurse what happened and he had to stop and he cried,” Salas said. “He cried with the nurse because he said nothing had ever shocked him like that in his career."
What they did on April 6, Carlson said, was a part of their job.
“We’re definitely not heroes,” Carlson said. “This is what we want to do, we’re here to help, we want to help people. It’s not anything any other person who has the tools and ability to help wouldn’t do.”
The officers said they plan to stay in touch with Kendall and her family throughout the years.
“I’d be lying if I said every time I drive past that street, I don’t smile,” Carlson said. “I park and want to say hi.”
Salas said she will not soon forget the officer.
"I'm never going to forget him,” Salas said. “He's like our angel in blue.”
