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FROM STAFF REPORTS / Editorial

Our children are one of the most important aspects of our lives. We care for them, we love them and we don’t want any harm to come their way.

Imagine driving down the interstate at 1:50 a.m. trying to get your child to the hospital not knowing what was wrong when they all of a sudden go into cardiac arrest.

That was the reality for one family on Thursday, July 30, when a child traveling in a vehicle with its parents near Calera started having a heart attack.

But thanks to quick and calm response under pressure from 911 dispatchers to first responders, the child was able to live.

After 911 dispatchers Katie Cain and Heather Portera directed the family to a safe place to park, two Calera Police officers and a Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputy arrived on the scene to find the child in cardiac arrest.

The officers immediately jumped into action without any hesitation, knowing a child’s life was on the line. They administered CPR quickly, which the child responded to.

That’s when personnel from the Calera Fire Department arrived to provide advanced life support before the child was then taken to Children’s of Alabama.

Once at the hospital, the child was alert and talking.

That might not have been the case had those first responders not arrived the second they did and had they not been prepared to immediately save a life.

It’s incredible when you truly break down the frightening situation and the amount of pressure that was on everybody from the parents worrying to the 911 dispatchers keeping them calm to the first responders saving the child’s life.

Calera officers Adam Booth and Jesse Deerman and Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputy Luigi Ragazzoni were the three officers who revived the child, but to them, while special, it was their job.

But most impressive, they executed their job flawlessly.

Most of us have made a mistake in our professional field at some point or another, but there was no room for either of those three to make a mistake with a child’s life on the line.

Their instinct was to jump into action and save a life. Without a second of hesitation or worry about the worst possible outcome, they did their jobs exceptionally.

Thank you officers Booth and Deerman, deputy Ragazzoni, dispatchers Cain and Portera, and the Pelham Fire Department for your quick action. Because of you, a child is still alive.