A sheriff’s deputy in California is credited with saving the life of an 11-month-old child during a Black Lives Matter protest after the baby swallowed a coin and couldn’t breathe.
The young boy stopped breathing at a park in Palmdale, located in Los Angeles County, on May 31, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department wrote in a statement.
The sheriff’s office posted a 1-minute-long video of the rescue, showing two women running with the child in a supermarket parking lot. It’s unclear if the two women were participating in the demonstration.
The mother of the baby tried to pat the boy’s back, and the other woman flagged down the deputy, later identified as Cameron Kinsey, who was monitoring a demonstration that was sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis police custody earlier in May.
Kinsey is credited with performing a “mouth sweep” before dislodging vomit.
“Video footage shows clear relief in the posture of everyone encircling when the baby began to breathe again and regained alertness. Paramedics arrived shortly afterward and transported the toddler to the hospital for treatment. It was later determined the little one swallowed a coin, which lodged in his throat and blocked the airway,” the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department wrote in a statement.
Kinsey’s actions made the coin to shift sideways, allowing for air to pass through.
“None of that other stuff matters,” said Kinsey about the protest. “Just the baby.”
In an interview with a local paper, the deputy said that the unnamed child’s mother took the right course of action.
“Mom did the right thing,” Kinsey told the Antelope Valley Press. “She was quick-thinking and started patting him on the back to dislodge whatever he had stuck in there. I saw that. I saw she was scared and kind of frantic, so I ran over and I grabbed the baby. At that point, training just took over.”
