BARNSTABLE, Mass. (WHDH) — It was a scary Christmas for Samantha D’Elia and her 9-week old son when he started choking.
Samantha said her son, Brandon Brooks, had just finished eating when he threw up and began to choke.
Barnstable Police Officer Dennis Stampfl answered the 911 call and walked Samantha through the process of performing CPR and the Heimlich maneuver on her young son.
"The only way I can explain it is, I don't know what my normal heart rate is, say it's somewhere around 60 and as soon as she said I have a 9-week-old baby it went up well over a thousand beats per minute," Stampfl said.
Nervous or not he calmly gave instructions to D'Elia's friend Melanie Campbell who told the young mother what to do.
Minutes later Brandon started breathing much to his mother and Stampfl’s relief.
“That right there is the greatest thing ever that you can listen to,” Stampfl said over the phone after the 9-week-old started crying.
D’Elia said this is the best Christmas ever, for officer Stampfl it’s just part of the job.