A one-month-old baby boy stopped breathing inside an Astoria apartment on Oct. 1, and the officers who arrived first did not wait for paramedics. They dropped to the floor and began pumping the infant’s tiny chest themselves, reviving him before EMS even reached the scene.
Officers from the NYPD’s 114th Precinct responded to the call near 24th Avenue and 27th Street around 4:41 p.m. that day, according to New York Daily News. Body-camera footage released this week shows officers rushing into the apartment, where they found the baby unconscious and unresponsive. They started CPR and other lifesaving measures while waiting for EMS to arrive, per ABC7 New York.
The video captures officers taking turns performing chest compressions for about a minute and a half, according to the same Daily News report. At one point, an officer can be heard asking, “There’s nothing in his mouth, right?” — a detail that underscores how uncertain the scene was in those first critical seconds.
Baby Starts Breathing Again Mid-Rescue
A woman at the scene told officers the baby had vomited earlier, the outlet reported, though it remains unclear what led the infant to stop breathing in the first place. As officers worked, a voice can be heard in the footage saying, “He’s breathing. He’s breathing.”
The officers were able to successfully revive the infant, who started breathing again, ABC7’s account states. They then carried the baby outside, where they were met by EMS, and he was rushed to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in stable condition.
NYPD Credits Officers' Quick Action
In a statement, the NYPD said officers saved the baby’s life after immediately beginning chest compressions upon finding him unresponsive. The department shared the account of the rescue this week, more than a week after the Oct. 1 call.
Body-camera rescues of infants by police are not unheard of elsewhere. A May 2021 report from FOX 5 New York described similar footage of officers rushing into a Massachusetts home and performing CPR and first aid on a motionless baby. In the Astoria case, the precise cause of the breathing stoppage was not immediately clear at the time the footage was released.
