By JD Mullane
Bucks County Courier Times
LEVITTOWN, Pa. — The life and death ordeal for Kelly Zemartis and her infant son, Zachary, began on Wednesday, Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving.
“He was four days old, and we had a pediatrician’s appointment for his first check-up,” she said.
Her husband had fed the baby about 7:30 a.m., and later she began to get ready for the doctor’s appointment.
“I was going to take a shower, but there was something, I can’t say exactly what it was. I just didn’t feel right about him. I went over and looked at him, and I rubbed him. He woke up but he didn’t seem right. He seemed, how can I put it, like he was out of it.”
She picked up Zachary and held him. Then she took his bassinette into the bathroom, where she could keep a close watch on him.
“Within maybe ten seconds he stopped breathing,” she said.
Baby Zachary was turning blue. She ran to her phone and dialed 911. The dispatcher calmly led her through the steps to perform CPR on a baby.
“I was frantic,” she said. “I’ve had trauma with this kind of situation.”
Several years ago she had lost a baby, just seven weeks old. The child had died in his sleep.
“After that experience, I wasn’t expecting his eyes to open again,” she said.
The dispatcher continued to instruct her.
“I wasn’t sure if I was doing things right,” she said.
About a mile away, Tullytown Police Officer Nate Aldsworth was finishing with a traffic accident just south of the Levittown train station.
“The call came in as a four or five-day-old baby not breathing,” he said. “I jumped in my car and drove fast as I could to get there.”
Arriving, he found Kelly distraught and Zachary in distress. He wasn’t breathing.
“The baby was very pale and his lips were turning blue,” he said.
He asked Kelly: “Did he eat anything?”
“No,” she said.
“Let’s check anyway,” he said.
No obstruction in his airway.
“I immediately rolled him over and started CPR,” Officer Aldsworth said.
CPR for babies is a much more delicate procedure than for adults.
“Two fingers on the chest, gently pressing down to a certain level,” Aldsworth said.
He estimates he did that for about two minutes.
“When you’re in the moment, you don’t really keep track of the time,” he said. “I just kept pressing.”
And pressing. And pressing. The infant’s eyes opened.
“That was a moment,” Officer Aldsworth said.
First, relief. Later, joy.
An ambulance from the Levittown-Fairless Hills Rescue Squad arrived.
“They walked in and then told me to keep doing CPR until they were ready to take him,” he said.
He handed the baby to the EMTs, who administered oxygen.
“When I went out and checked on him, they said he was breathing on his own,” Aldsworth said. “It was the most stressful call of my 17-year career.”
They rushed Zachary and his mother to Capital Health in New Jersey, and then to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=225308069783268
She spent all night and all Thanksgiving Day at CHOP.
“I really didn’t know if he was going to be OK until Thanksgiving night,” she said.
The doctors determined that baby Zach was having seizures, currently under control with medication. What triggered them is unknown, although doctors are having family tested to see if genetics play a role, and to determine treatment.
“Had Officer Nate not arrived at the moment he did, I don’t think we’d have Zachary,” Kelly said. She teared up.
“I can’t put into words to express how grateful I am, me and my whole family. My mom even chokes up about it when we talk about Officer Nate, our hero, our angel on earth.”
Since then, he has kept in touch with the family, to see how Zachary is doing.
Confronting life and death situations are part of a cop’s job. In his years with Tullytown, Aldsworth has seen more than his share of tragic endings. They are especially tough when a child is involved.
“That whole time I was there, I just wanted him to make it, to live, to grow up and have a great life,” Officer Aldsworth said. “I’ve been on calls over the years, accidents, pedestrians struck, and it doesn’t always work out. But with him, it did. It wasn’t his time.”
(c)2021 Bucks County Courier Times, Levittown, Pa.
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