Photo: Getty Images
A North Carolina State Trooper saves an infant’s life after pulling the family over while speeding to get her to the hospital. When Derrick Stroud and Victoria O'Neal’s infant daughter, Amelia, started having a cough, they weren’t too concerned. But in just a few hours, that little cough turned into a hoarse cry and the nine-week-old baby started having trouble breathing. Soon the family was in their car racing to try and get Amelia help at a nearby hospital.
Derrick knew he was going fast, but he was focused on getting his baby the medical care she desperately needed as quickly as possible. As they traveled at nearly 100 mph, they caught the attention of Trooper Matthew Brown, who pulled the family over for speeding. But when Brown, who is a former firefighter and EMT, got a look at the little girl in the back of the vehicle, he knew he needed to act quickly to save her life. "When I got back there, the baby was unresponsive sitting in the child's seat,” Brown recalls. “I turned her head towards me, and I could see that her lips started to go blue, and she was having a lot of trouble breathing."
So the trooper pulled the baby out of the seat and started rubbing on her back to “stimulate her to keep her awake where she could focus on getting her breathing back to normal." Brown, an expecting father himself, was able to get the baby’s breathing under control and Amelia’s parents are now crediting him with saving their daughter’s life. "Thank you so much, I cannot express how grateful I am that you were where you were when you were," O'Neal says. "From the bottom of my heart, that means a lot and I do thank you so much."