Baby Stopped Breathing; Florida Police Officer Saved Him: Video

OCALA, FL — Nechole Crowell and Marion County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Jeremie Nix both say God put him exactly where he needed to be Wednesday. As she and her sister were stopped at a red light in Ocala, Florida, Crowell’s 3-month-old son, Kingston, suddenly stopped breathing.

Nix, a K-9 officer for the sheriff’s office, was coming off his shift during rush hour when he heard blasting horns and saw the women flag him down. He whipped his cruiser around in the intersection.

As she handed her son off to Nix, Crowell shouted “Don’t let my baby die,” the officer told reporters at a news conference.

Nix did everything in his power to keep that from happening. He lay the baby on the grassy shoulder of the busy street and listened. He didn’t hear the baby breathing, and didn’t get a pulse. He began doing chest compressions, willing Kingston to breathe.

Kingston didn’t respond.

Paramedics were on their way, but Nix didn’t hear sirens and he knew that every moment that passed put Kingston in grave danger.

“I’m not waiting on medical,” Nix said on the police radio. “I’m headed to the emergency room with the baby.”

Dashcam video posted by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office on its YouTube video shows Nix rushing to nearby Ocala Regional Medical Center, his lights on.

“I just gripped him as hard as I could and I put it in drive and I went,” he told television station WSLS.

At the hospital, Nix handed Kingston to the first nurse he saw and medics took over. Kingston is expected to make a full recovery.

Nix is nothing short of a hero.

“Doctors also said that because of K9 Deputy Nix's actions, Baby Kingston is alive today,” the sheriff’s office said on the YouTube channel. “We are tremendously proud of Deputy Nix and we can already see that he and Baby Kingston will have a deep connection that will last a lifetime.”

Crowell calls him a godsend.

“Let me just say that yesterday GOD showed me just how real he was,” the baby’s grateful mother wrote on Facebook. “My son KING was barely breathing, & fighting for his life.

“My sister & I noticed an officer sitting at a red light & we got his attention. With his fast thinking HE & GOD saved my son. His word to me was ‘Don’t you worry, I will not leave until I help save your son! GOD had me in the right place because he knew you needed me…' ”

Kingston is now home with his mother and doing well. Doctors don’t know what caused him to stop breathing.

Video and image via Marion County Sheriff’s Office YouTube channel