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February 22, 2001, Burrillville, RI
Quick action by police dispatcher, Steven St. Pierre, a trained EMT, resuscitates
a toddler who stopped breathing
Dawn Tessier was driving home from a visit to the
doctor’s office with her two year old daughter Calli, who had been coughing
the whole way, when suddenly Calli gasped and fell quiet. Calli had stopped breathing in the back seat of the car.
Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head.
Calli’s mother knew the Burrillville police station was a short way
down the road, and she raced there with her daughter.
Rushing inside the station, clutching the toddler, who was pale and limp,
the mother cried for help. “My
baby’s not breathing!” The
station was empty except for police dispatcher Steven St. Pierre.
Acting quickly, St. Pierre called for an ambulance then raced to Callie.
Her eyes were closed; she was like a sheet of paper.
She obviously wasn’t breathing. He
grabbed the child, setting her on the floor and gave her mouth to mouth
resuscitation. “Everything
happened so fast, I don’t remember how many breaths I gave her – one, two
maybe three breaths. After about 30
seconds, she started to cry, her color started coming back, she was gasping and
moving around.” When paramedics
from the Oakland-Mapleville Fire district arrived within minutes, they treated
Callie and comforted her three year old sister, who had also been in the car. The ambulance transported the family to the Landmark Medical
Center in Woonsocket, where Calli was diagnosed with pneumonia.
Doctors said she had probably choked on fluid that congested her
respiratory system. Dr. Christopher
Lehrach told the Providence Journal that doctors worry about brain damage when a
child stops breathing for more than a few minutes, and that it was
“fortuitous” that Callie got help so quickly.
Dr. Lehrach said, “It was a scary situation but a good outcome.”
Later that evening, Callie was well enough to go home.
A relative drove Dawn Tessier and her children back to the Burillville
police station to pick up their car. They
went inside to see St. Pierre. Dawn
said, “I couldn’t sleep before thanking that dispatcher one more time.”
St. Pierre and the Burrillville officers who heard his frantic call for
help over the radio had worried about how the rescue turned out.
They were happy to see Callie looking better.
The next day, St. Pierre was back at work doing a double shift, and said
his response was “all in a day’s work” adding “every once in a while,
its nice to get something that works out.”
Tessier said she usually takes the main roads home, but took the
alternate route that passes the police station thinking it would get her sick
daughter home sooner. “I thank
God I decided to take the back road in front of the police station, because I
don’t know what I would have done.”
Reference: Providence Journal February 24, 2001 p. 1 |
