Riverside cop saves baby from choking

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KABC) -- Kahlid Williams and his fiance Kaysha Pacheco say they were at their Riverside home when it happened. Their 3-month-old son Alexander stopped breathing.

"I didn't know what to do. I was terrified. It was probably the worst feeling," said Pacheco, who found her son choking in his playpen.

Pacheco ran to get her fiance and they called 911.

"The call was for a baby who was choking. That's obviously one of the most stressful calls we can get," said Riverside Police Officer Victor Schmitz, who responded to the call.

The family brought the baby outside to wait for help. Alexander turned blue as he struggled to breathe, Pacheco said.

"When I first got on scene, it looked like the father was doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation," Schmitz said.

Schmitz knew there wasn't time to wait for paramedics.

"When I looked inside the child's mouth there was fluid and debris that looked like possibly vomit or saliva," Schmitz said.

After several small back thrusts, little Alexander started to cry.

"It sounds like a scary thing, but to us that's a big deal, because it means the baby is getting some oxygen," Schmitz said.

The couple is calling Schmitz a hero.

"There's good people who are wearing uniforms. Especially in light of all that's going on right now, this is something I'm really, really grateful for," Williams said.

But Schmitz said he was just at the right place at the right time.

"If it wasn't me and my other partner beat me here, he would have done the same thing," Schmitz said.