By Gina Mayfield
One evening after work, as Ingrid Zuniga Izquierdo relaxed in the living room of her multigenerational home, her sister was bathing her 1-year-old daughter, Leslie, who had been fighting some chest congestion. After a vapor bath, Leslie was halfway through a diaper change when she let out a little whimper and turned purple. Ingrid’s sister scooped up Leslie and went screaming to the living room.
“My niece was purple, she was like a rag doll, she had no motion,” Ingrid says, “She was choking. She wasn’t breathing. My sister was panicking.” Ingrid, who has children of her own with respiratory issues, was ready. “I’ve taken CPR classes, so I know the drill. You go into that mode and do what you.” she says. Ingrid placed Leslie on the floor and immediately started child CPR, with compressions and breaths, while her sister called 911.
By this point, three generations of the family had gathered around. “The kids were crying as they were seeing what was going on, my mom too, everybody was just panicking. I was just in that mindset of ‘Okay, I have no time to panic. Either I’m going to do something about this, or it’s not going to end well.’” Ingrid says. “I was able to get Leslie to come out of it. As soon as she took her first breath, her color started to come back.”
Soon after, the EMTs arrived, assessed Leslie and took her to the ER where the doctor told Ingrid’s sister, if Ingrid hadn’t administered CPR, they would be dealing with a “completely different story” due to oxygen deprivation and what that does to the brain.
Leslie spent the night in the hospital and her parents got to take her home the next day. While doctors are still running tests to determine the full story, they suspect a contributing factor was phlegm from chest congestion that blocked Leslie’s airways.
“I told my sister, ‘I’m glad I was around. What would you have done? Leslie needed air, she needed help,’” Ingrid says.
“This whole experience was such an eye opener, it motivated my whole family to learn CPR. My mom doesn’t know much English, so my parents went to El Concilio, the Hispanic American Council, and they taught them to do CPR. I tell people not to allow a language barrier to stop them from learning CPR, you could save a life. I’m even teaching my 9-year-old daughter,” Ingrid says.
“People tend not to worry about things until they happen to them. But you never know when you’re going to need CPR,” Ingrid says. “I’m so thankful Leslie’s still here.”