began to fuss. Then came a whimper.
“If she’s crying like that, she’s
breathing,” said Kimbro, the relief pal-
pable in his trembling voice. “As long
as she’s crying, she’s breathing.”
But they still had five more minutes
until EMS would arrive, and Kimbro
worried that Ryleigh would asphyxi-
ate again. He continued with delicate
chest compressions and periodically
clearing her airway. “The whole time I
was thinking, Do not let this baby die in
front of her mother and grandmother,”
he later told Inside Edition. “Just don’t.”In the body cam footage, Kimbro
can be heard reassuring Kemira, the
approaching sirens wailing in the back-
ground: “I didn’t feel a heartbeat ear-
lier, so I started massaging her heart,
and now I feel it. It’s real strong now.”
After transferring Ryleigh to an
EMT, Kimbro peeked into the win-
dows of the ambulance until it pulled
away. At the hospital, Ryleigh recov-
ered quickly, and she was back to her
usual feisty self in no time—thanks
to a determined school police officer
who was in the right place at the right
time. Said Kimbro to the Washington
Post, “That baby was living no matter
what I had to do.” RDthem. Deputy Will Kimbro figured that
the speeding driver was either too dis-
tracted to notice him or plain uncon-
cerned. Kimbro soon found out it was
a frightening combination of the two.
Once she’d pulled over to the curb,
a frantic Tammy jumped out of the car,
exclaiming that her granddaughter
had stopped breathing. Desperate for
help, Kemira handed the baby to Kim-
bro. He put a hand on her little chest.
Ryleigh’s heart was barely beating.
Kimbro radioed for an ambulance—
it was seven minutes out, and the hos-
pital was even further away. That was
seven minutes Ryleigh didn’t have, her
lips already an ominous shade of blue.
The fact that Kimbro was there was
something of a miracle. He is a school
resource officer who usually spends
his days patrolling the halls of the mid-
dle school ten miles away. But he trav-
els farther afield when school is out
in the summer. Even luckier: He had
recently completed a CPR class and
knew exactly how to treat an infant.
“Although I was shocked, my train-
ing kicked in, and I went to work to
keep that baby alive,” says Kimbro.
The deputy gave Ryleigh to Kemira
to hold, his hands busy as he checked
for a pulse. Then he began tapping
and kneading Ryleigh’s chest, hoping
to massage her heart back into action.
Thanks to the CPR class, Kimbro knew
the choking infant didn’t have a chance
if there was a blockage, and he used one
finger to clear her airway. That was the
magic touch; 20 seconds later, Ryleigh
“DO NOT LET THIS
BABY DIE IN FRONT OF
HER MOTHER AND
GRANDMOTHER.”rd.com 31