The good guys
NYPD officer Jeremy Banfield and fellow officers were in the “cop shop” when one of the neighbors came to the door: “I remember very specifically a Chinese guy walked up to me and said, ‘Mommy Mommy- Fire—6th floor’ and at that point I knew we had to get up there,” recalled the 16-year veteran. Banfield and his co-worker police officers jumped into action before firefighters could arrive when alerted to the fire out in the 6-story apartment building right across from their police precinct in Chinatown. A body camera worn by Officer William Finan, a 19-year veteran of the force, caught him on video carrying out a 99-year-old woman. Moments later, his partner William Dottavio jumped right in to help. “I start making my way up to the 5th floor and that’s when I see Detective Rosado coming down the stairs holding another elderly woman,” said Dottavio. Body cam footage shows him in a full-out sprint; yet he and the team kept calm enough in the chaos to help save 2 more residents that would’ve struggled to make it down the flights of stairs. The officers ended up rescuing the 99-year-old woman, along with a 96- and 91-year-old man, carrying them into their precinct building following the fire just one week before Christmas. “After you’re done and after you get everybody out of there, and you do see that the holidays are here, then you start thinking wow. This could’ve been totally different,” said Officer Rodney Rosado. “I would do it again and I know there are 25,000 cops on this job that would’ve done exactly the same thing that we did that day,” added Banfield.
Officer Robert Baer was on patrol in his car at 2am when the 911 dispatcher put out a call that a frantic couple, claimed that their one-year-old boy wasn’t breathing. The pair was reportedly en-route to the hospital at the time when the authorities on the call told them to stop so EMS could find them for medical assistance. Robert immediately heeded the call and drove to the roadside, whereupon he was flagged down by Zaire’s father. “I just saw a man running in the road waving his arms at me,” Baer described, “and at that point, he handed me a one-year-old that wasn’t breathing.” With time running out, the courageous cop took the child and went to work performing CPR by the side of the road. Baer immediately compressing the imperiled tot’s chest as he repeatedly commanded the boy to “stay with him.” Meanwhile, the petrified father was pleading, “Please don’t stop breathing.” “Once he came to, he started breathing again,” said Robert describing how he revived little Zaire. The officer said that he “picked him up and his eyes rolled in the back of his head and that’s when I sat him back down, he wasn’t breathing again so I started chest compressions again.” All the while, Baer was reportedly focused on the same thing. “I’m thinking, I have a three-year-old at home, that’s what I’m thinking about.” Baer kept up the chest compressions while telling little Zaire, “Stay with me.” After what seemed like an eternity, he finally managed to resuscitate little Zaire. Officer Baer revived the baby just in time as EMS said it would have been “different outcome” had he not been there and known what to do.
Robert met with Zaire’s mother Marchelle Brown a month later, during which he held the boy again, but under much better circumstances. “I really appreciate it and thank you very much that you saved my son,” Marcella thanked her tot’s rescuer. “I feel like I’ll forever have a bond with that kid,” gushed Baer. “Mom told me, ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ making sure I come around and checking on him, so. I’m sure I will continue to do that.” In fact, Robert said the experience made him want to go and check on his own son to make sure “he’s ok.” “I’ll never forget the things that took place, the sound he made when he started breathing,” said Baer.
Saved by the…
Two sailors were adrift on a raft of planks from their sunken ship. They were sunburned, hungry and tired and had given up hope of rescue. One got on his knees and began to shout a prayer. “Oh Lord, I have been worthless in my life. I have been unkind to my wife. I have abandoned my children and lived sinfully, but If you will save me, I promise…” Just then the other sailor shouted, “Hold it, I think I see land.”
Toward the end of their senior year in high school, students were required to take a CPR course. The classes used the well known mannequin victim, Rescue Annie, to practice. Rescue Anne was legless to allow for storage in a carrying case. The class went off in groups to practice. As instructed, one of the students gently shook the doll and asked, “Are you all right?” He then put his ear over the mannequin’s mouth to listen for breathing. Suddenly, the student turned to the instructor and exclaimed, “She says she can’t feel her legs!”
Did you hear about the dolphin at Sea World that is now used for underwater rescues?
He was reporpoised.
What do you get when you cross an Indian smoothie with a rescue dog?
Mango Lassie.
January 3rd Birthdays
1975 – Danica McKellar, 1993 – Candelaria Molfese, 1984 – Katie McGrath, 1950 – Victoria Principal
1909 – Victor Borge, 1981 – Eli Manning, 1892 – JRR Tolkein, 1955 – Mel Gibson