A Texas A&M University police officer recently used her skills, training and quick-thinking abilities to help save the life of a newborn infant at a local restaurant.
Officer Norma Schoellman was on her lunch break at a nearby College Station restaurant on Tuesday, Oct. 17, when she heard a woman screaming for help near the front door and needing help with her young son who was just a few days old. The mother had been driving in her car when she noticed her son was not breathing and immediately turned into the restaurant parking lot.
Schoellman, a Houston native who has been a Texas A&M police officer since 2014, quickly noticed the child was not breathing, and began life saving efforts and radioed the College Station Fire Department for assistance.
“The mother believed the boy had stopped breathing,” Schoellman recalls.
“I grabbed him and began administering first aid and CPR. His eyes opened after a few moments and he started breathing again. About that time, the EMS personnel showed up and took it from there, and he was transported to a local hospital.”
Schoellman says it’s the first time she’s ever had to use her life-saving training on a person, “but I worked as a dispatcher for several years and on some occasions I had to give instructions over the phone. But to actually do this on a person, yes, that was a first.”
“CPR training is required for all of our officers,” explains spokesman Bobby Richardson of the Texas A&M University Police Department.
“It is important for everyone to be trained in basic first aid because you never know when you will need it.”
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Media contact: Bobby Richardson, Texas A&M Police Department, at (979) 845-0070 or brichardson@tamu.edu or Keith Randall, News & Information Services, at (979) 845-4644 or keith-randall@tamu.edu
