Officer Saves Baby’s Life on 1st Shift of New Year

An alert police officer helped avert a New Year’s Day tragedy when he raced to save a 10-month-old girl who had stopped breathing.

Eric Reinholtz, a Costa Mesa motorcycle officer, had just left the police station about 2:45 p.m. Monday for his first shift of 1996 when he heard a call on the radio that almost stopped his heart.

“It said ‘baby not breathing,’ ” Reinholtz recalled. Although there were other officers closer to the scene, Reinholtz said, he responded because he believed he could get there quicker on his motorcycle.

“I pulled up to the front of the house, ran in, took the baby from the dad’s arms and laid her on the carpet,” the officer said. “I couldn’t clear the airways because her jaw was locked, and there was no movement on her stomach.”

While the parents of Ariana Juarez Torrez looked on aghast, Reinholtz, who had just recently been recertified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, said he placed the baby on her stomach and performed the Heimlich maneuver. He tapped sharply several times on her back and checked for signs of breathing. When nothing happened, he said, he quickly repeated the maneuver and tapped her another four or five times.

Suddenly the baby started spitting up fluid and breathing. He estimated the elapsed time since his arrival at 20 seconds. “It seems like forever until you hear the paramedics coming,” said Reinholtz, who has been with the department for seven years.

Ariana was taken to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach where she was reported in stable condition under the watchful eyes of doctors and her parents, Ruben Andrade and Anna Torrez.

The baby, who lives with her parents on the 2200 block of Fountain Way West, had stopped breathing at the family’s New Year’s Day gathering. The child had been taking medication for a flu-like condition, police said.

Back at the police station Monday afternoon, the 31-year-old officer was trying hard to unwind after what had turned out to be a rather auspicious beginning to the new year.

“It hits you afterward and you feel emotional,” he said. “I have a little 1 1/2-year-old at home. This makes me want to go home and hug my kid.”