911 Dispatcher Helps Mother Save Baby

A cool-headed 911 dispatcher calmly explained to a frantic mother how to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation Saturday, helping the woman save the life of her 1-month-old baby, who had stopped breathing, Los Angeles Fire Department officials said.

The mother dialed 911 just after noon and told firefighter-dispatcher Julio Maldonado that her son suffered from apnea and had stopped breathing.

“She kept saying it over and over again: The baby wasn’t breathing, the baby wasn’t breathing,” said Maldonado, a 10-year veteran who is trained as an emergency medical technician. “She was terrified, but she was able to talk . . . and I just talked her through it.”

After the first resuscitation cycle, Maldonado asked the mother to check the baby for a pulse.

“She said she thought he was breathing,” Maldonado said. “And then I heard him start crying in the background. By the time the paramedics arrived, the baby was letting out some good wails.”

Maldonado said the mother, whose name was not released, told him that her baby had recently spent 10 days in the hospital and suffered from apnea, a condition marked by sudden interruption of breathing. She said she found her son lying motionless after hearing the alarm from a device that monitors his breathing.

The boy was listed in good condition late Saturday at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said.

On the tape recording of the call, Maldonado said, the mother can be heard “speaking kind of to herself, kind of to the baby. She says something like, ‘I never thought I’d be happy to hear you cry so loud.’ ”