Content warning: Some viewers may find the body camera footage in this story upsetting.
Two NYPD officers in Queens are being credited with helping save the life of a 1-month-old boy who stopped breathing, with body camera footage capturing their frantic efforts to revive him.
Officers Douglas Zimmerman and Jesutofunmi Aregbesola, who have each been on the job for about two years, responded to a call in Astoria involving an infant who was not breathing and had no pulse.
“Seconds matter when it comes to working with a child like that at that age,” Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman immediately began working to revive the baby before Aregbesola took over CPR.
“The academy training kind of just kicked in, and I just began doing what I remember from the Academy,” Aregbesola said.
Less than two minutes after the officers arrived, the infant was breathing again.
“The baby’s eyes kind of opened up. You kind of also kind of see the color returning,” Aregbesola said.
“Time finally kind of went back to normal at that moment,” Zimmerman said.
About two weeks after the incident, the officers said they had heard from the family that the baby was doing well.
“In the moment, you don’t realize that we leave the job, go to another one, and, you know, you don’t think much of it until kind of looking back at it and we’re like, wow, it was a great thing that my partner have done,” Zimmerman said.