Forest Park officers hailed as heroes for saving infant's life with swift CPR

Officers save infant's life

Two Forest Park Police officers are being called heroes. They saved a 4-week-old infant’s life. Body-cam video shows the two officers jumping into action and immediately performing CPR on the baby.

FOREST PARK, Ga. - Two Forest Park police officers are being praised for their life-saving actions after reviving a 4-week-old baby who had stopped breathing outside a CVS pharmacy on May 14.

Body camera footage shows Lt. Jimmie Arnold and Cpl. Angelic Coley rushing to the scene on Forest Parkway, where they immediately began CPR on the unresponsive infant.

What they're saying:

The officers arrived within a minute of the call. Arnold cradled the baby while Coley began chest compressions. Within about 10 seconds of CPR, the baby began to cry — a sound the officers described as pure relief.

"Relief," Arnold said. "Yes, absolutely — relief."

"Every second that goes by that that child's not receiving oxygen to the brain — those are critical seconds," Arnold said.

The officers, who have worked together at the Forest Park Police Department for five years, credit their strong partnership and the department’s rigorous training standards for their quick response.

"He's definitely my crutch. I'm his muscle. He is the crutch. So I'm the muscle here," Coley said.

While Georgia only requires 20 hours of police training annually, Forest Park Police Chief Brandon Criss mandates 100 hours. Arnold said he had recently completed a CPR-focused course just six weeks earlier.

"So the minimum standard for Georgia police officers is 20 hours of training. Chief Criss has a higher standard. He requires that we have 100 hours of training," Arnold said.

Coley noted the irony that just minutes before the call, she had told Arnold she had never responded to an infant medical emergency and wasn’t sure she’d be ready if one ever came.

"We were actually having a conversation about working juvenile calls," she said. "I told him, within my five years of being here, I haven’t worked a call of such — and I’m not ready to. And he said, well, nobody is ever ready for that."

But she was.

"It's an awesome feeling, especially knowing that 17 minutes before that call, I said that I wasn't ready," Coley said.

In a remarkable coincidence, the officers had responded to a separate call at the same CVS earlier that day and were nearby when the emergency came in.

"I definitely think God was, he was in that parking lot," Coley said.

Both officers say the advanced training — particularly the distinctions in how CPR is performed on infants versus adults — played a crucial role in the successful outcome.