By Gene Warner
The Buffalo News
Little Izaiah White had just stopped breathing — for the second time — on his family’s high-speed car ride down Elmwood Avenue.
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His parents were frantic.
Chauncey White, 29, was blaring his horn, going through red lights and driving on the Elmwood Avenue sidewalk, when necessary, in a mad dash toward Women & Children’s Hospital.
Kenetria Allen, 24, had jumped into the back seat to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation, breathing life back into her 23-month-old son.
But less than a minute before their car reached Auburn Avenue and the Wilson Farms store early Wednesday afternoon, Izaiah again stopped breathing, an apparent allergic reaction to medication.
White then saw a most-welcome sight: a pair of police cars.
“As I was passing the Wilson Farms, I saw the two police cars,” White said. “I immediately put it in reverse and jumped out of the car.”
White told the officers that he needed help, that his little boy was not breathing.
By good fortune, Northwest District officers had been called to the convenience store to investigate a report of a man down.
The first officer to rush to the car was Officer Jose Vega, a 23-year veteran of the Buffalo Police Department. And he didn’t hesitate.
“I just went on auto-pilot,” Vega explained. “Twenty-three years of training. It just comes to you.”
Vega was told that little Izaiah was in the back seat of the vehicle, with his mother.
“He instantly dove in, pulled out the baby and administered CPR [through] mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” Buffalo Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson said at a news conference saluting the efforts of Vega, Officers Derrick Ferrell and Valerie Stover-Kelly and four Buffalo firefighters.
The life-saving drama was captured on a city video surveillance camera.
“The three officers worked as one unified body to deliver life-saving measures to the boy,” Gipson added.
The officers called for rescue personnel. Within minutes, Engine 37 firefighters, led by Lt. Michael Lynch and aided by Firefighters Gary Schultz, David Denz and Robert Carnevale had arrived and took over the rescue efforts.
Izaiah was taken to nearby Women & Children’s, where family members said he remains in critical but stable condition.
“I think it’s pretty clear that Izaiah is still with us today because of the quick actions of the Buffalo police and firefighters,” Mayor Byron W. Brown said in opening the news conference.
The boy’s parents explained that he apparently suffered a severe reaction to medication he was given for respiratory problems.
He had seemed fine when they put him into their car on Bush Street, off Amherst Street, west of Elmwood.
At about 1:05 p.m., at Elmwood and Amherst, White touched his son and realized he wasn’t breathing. So he asked Allen to jump into the back seat, where she administered CPR and got him breathing again.
But only for a short time, before police and firefighters completed the rescue mission.
“I would just like to say that the work these police officers did was amazing,” Allen said. “They asked no questions. They did what they had to do to save my son.”
Near the beginning of Friday’s news conference, Deputy Fire Commissioner Garnell W. Whitfield Jr. offered a prayer for Izaiah’s recovery.
And Vega, one of the police department’s most well-respected officers, offered his own religious slant on the incident.
“I would just like to say that every morning I wake up and pray that the Lord will make me an instrument of his will,” he said. “I’m just glad that my prayers were answered.”
What have doctors told the little boy’s parents?
“They told us they’re not going to promise anything and also not to expect the worst,” Allen told reporters.
“It could go either way, but it’s more good than bad now,” White said.
Then White talked about the couple’s much-loved son.
“My son has Down syndrome, and that’s a special reason why I even love him more. I just want him back, in whatever condition he’s in.”
“He’s a fighter,” Allen added.
Copyright 2009 The Buffalo News