Two Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies were having a cup of coffee at Goodie’s in Campbell this morning when a grandmother came running in: “Help me, help me!” she said. “The baby’s not breathing!”
Deputies Rick Chaeff and Mike Laddy lept from their seats, called for emergency crews and rushed to the parking lot, where the 22-year-old mother was cradling her 17-day-old daughter, Isys.
The baby was purple. The mother was distraught. Chaeff, a patrol deputy as well as a tactical medical team leader for the county SWAT team, was an expert in CPR.
He took the baby and checked for a breath. There was none. He tried to rouse her by rubbing her chest and thwacking the bottom of her feet. Not a flinch. He listened for a breath, but heard nothing. Chaeff started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. With two gentle puffs, he tried to breathe air into the baby’s nose and mouth.
“At first the air wouldn’t go in,” he said. So he repositioned the baby, but still nothing.
He flipped her over and gently thumped on her back to clear any obstruction from her airway, but found only mucus. After a third failed attempt, the air finally went in the fourth time, Chaeff said. She had a pulse, but was not breathing on her own until he breathed into her a fifth time.
“I gave two more breaths and she started to wiggle around,” Chaeff said. “She took her little hands and pushed me away. She actually cried, so I was happy.”
Paramedics arrived quickly, he said, and transported the baby to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.
Grandmother Maria Aleman and mother Bernice Brown explained to the deputies later that when they first noticed the baby in distress at home nearby, they jumped in their car and were driving to the hospital when they noticed the patrol car in the parking lot of the coffee shop on Bascom Avenue. That’s when they pulled in for help.
At the hospital this morning, Chaeff went in to check on mother and baby.
“I feel much better,” Brown told him.
And the baby?
“She’s sleeping,” Brown said. “She’s fine.”
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