By Barry Williams and Leonard Greene
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — New year, new baby to save.
Just weeks after heroically saving a neighbor’s choking 1-year-old girl, an NYPD officer was at it again, saving the life of a 2-year-old boy who had stopped breathing in his Bronx home.
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After a few well-timed backslaps, Officer Freddie Cerpa, who had responded to another officer’s distress call about an unresponsive child, had the silent toddler crying in no time.
When Cerpa arrived at the Bronx home at Watson and Manor Aves. on Jan. 16, he found Officer Megan Ficken working hard to get the little boy breathing again.
“I kind of used my past experience from a month ago to try to give her an idea of what I did last time,” Cerpa told reporters Thursday. “Like checking the airways, doing the backslaps. Once we did that, we were able to work together as a team, and we were able to save the child.”
Paramedics soon arrived and rushed the boy to Jacobi Medical Center.
Last month, the backslapping beat cop was off duty at his home in Elmont, in Nassau County, when a frantic neighbor ran up to his porch with her choking daughter.
Cerpa calmly turned the 1-year-old girl around and had her breathing again after a few slaps on her back.
Both rescues were caught on camera. The rescue outside Cerpa’s home was captured on surveillance video.
Cerpa and Ficken were recorded on another officer’s body camera.
Ficken happened to be across the street when the call came in. Cerpa said he ran three blocks to the location.
“You want everything to work out perfect,” Ficken said. “It amps the intensity, the urgency and the understanding of how impactful this situation is for parents.”
Both officers are rookies, and credited the training they received in the NYPD Police Academy.
”We saved another child’s life,” Cerpa said. “Like I said last time, our mission at the NYPD is to preserve life. I’m just glad we were able to do that.”
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