Two Beverly Hills security guards saved the life of a baby boy who was choking and turning blue in a gas station parking lot.
Joey Madrigal, Niko Nesbeth’s partner at the private security company Covered Six, heard a woman screaming, “Is there a doctor? Is there a doctor?”
Security footage shows Nesbeth, a U.S. Marine who served for eight years, throwing his snacks on the counter and rushing outside to help, Fox LA reported.
The footage shows the woman handing the baby to Nesbeth, then falling to her knees.
“I noticed looking at the baby’s face. The baby was turning blue,” Nesbeth told Fox LA. “I could tell his colors were changing, so I knew he was choking and wasn’t getting air.”
Nesbith said he turned the baby over on his stomach and gently patted his back to dislodge “whatever was lodged in his airways.”
While Nesbith attended to the baby, Madrigal, a recent hire with the security company, called the company’s direct line to the police, bringing the police to the scene in minutes.
“(Nesbeth) tells me the baby isn’t breathing, right then and there I turned and one thing I’ve learned in training is that you’ve got to slow down time,” Madrigal told FOX LA. “You have to realize and just get all the facts and put it all together because I was in charge of getting rescue as fast as possible.”
The baby is now in good health, the security guards said.
Beverly hills contracts Covered Six, a veteran-owned private security company headquartered in Moorpark, California.
The symptoms of an infant choking are “bluish skin color, difficulty breathing — ribs and chest pull inward, weak, ineffective coughing, and inability to cry or make much sound,” according to MedlinePlus.
MedlinePlus gives steps for first aid when a baby is choking:
1. Lay the infant face down, along your forearm. Use your thigh or lap for support. Hold the infant’s chest in your hand and the jaw with your fingers. Point the infant’s head downward, lower than the body.
2. Give up to 5 quick, forceful blows between the infant’s shoulder blades. Use the palm of your free hand.
If the object does not come out of the airway after 5 blows:
1.Turn the infant face-up. Use your thigh or lap for support. Support the head.
2. Place 2 fingers on the middle of the breastbone just below the nipples.
3. Give up to 5 quick thrusts down, compressing the chest one third to one half the depth of the chest.
4. Continue 5 back blows followed by 5 chest thrusts until the object is dislodged or the infant loses alertness (becomes unconscious).
“If the child is coughing hard or has a strong cry do not administer the first aid,” the site advises, as ”strong coughs and cries” can help push the lodged item out of the throat.