By Joanna Putman
Police1
TRENTON, N.J. — Body camera footage shows New Jersey Transit police officers at the Trenton station saving a choking 3-year-old boy who had become unresponsive, WABC reported.
The incident occurred on April 16 when the child’s father, traveling from Texas to New York City on a chartered migrant bus, frantically handed his son to the officers, according to the report.
“We grabbed [him], and [he] actually kind of flopped onto us. So that’s when we realized something was wrong with the airway,” Sergeant Michael Filandro told WABC.
In the tense moments that followed, Filandro and K-9 Officer Timothy Geoghegan worked together to clear the child’s airway.
“Sergeant grabbed the baby and started doing some back blows. I kind of was just trying to maintain the airway,” Geoghegan said.
Despite their efforts, the child remained unresponsive, his condition visibly deteriorating, according to the report.
“You could kind of see the kid’s status going downhill a little bit, where he was starting to turn a little bit more blue, a little bit more gray,” said Geoghegan.
The officers rushed the child to the hospital, with Filandro holding him and performing compressions en route.
“As soon as we heard the first kind of cry, a little cry or sigh, I was just kind of like, oh man, I’m glad that it’s breathing now,” Filandro said.