The Kansas City Star
(TNS)
Brandon Hullinger was relaxing at his neighborhood pool in Kansas City’s Northland Monday evening when he heard someone yell, “Does anybody know CPR?”
“My first thought was, ‘Did I hear that right?” Hullinger, a Kansas City Fire Department employee who was off-duty, recalled Tuesday afternoon. “I was kind of shocked to hear that.”
He scanned the pool and saw a woman lying on the ground. A young child was half in and half out of the water nearby. Hullinger said he immediately jumped up and told a “young lady” nearby with a phone to call 911.
As he drew near, he saw the child lying lifeless at the side of the pool. Not knowing yet what had happened, he started CPR and asked the mom what occurred.
“She kept saying he was at the bottom,” Hullinger said.
Hullinger assumed he was dealing with a drowning situation and continued CPR. Shortly after, a security guard for the Coves community came over and took over CPR. Then Hullinger switched to doing stomach thrusts to get the boy to expel some of the water he’d ingested.
After a few rounds, the child started to spit up water. Hullinger rolled the child over, picked the boy up, carried him to a shaded area, and placed him on a table.
When fellow firefighters from Station 44 on Northwest Barry Road arrived, their medic started giving the child oxygen. The child was then placed in an ambulance and taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital.
From what Hullinger heard, the child’s expected to make a full recovery.
Relied on training
Hullinger said he went into “pilot mode” as his training kicked in, and he described the security guard’s help as awesome. He said it’s vital to have more than one person to help out, and the guard did a great job.
“When I knew the child was kind of starting to breathe and stuff, that was a huge relief,” Hullinger said. “I felt like at least we have a shot at that point because it was not looking so good for a long time.”
Hullinger said it hadn’t hit him yet that he had saved a life. It’s not something he expected to do while off-duty.
“First time I’ve had a situation like this outside of being at work, actually,” Hullinger said. “When you’re at work, you have, you know, three or four people to bounce ideas off of and to do all the things. When you’re by yourself, it’s a whole ‘nother ball game.”
Hullinger, who has worked at the Kansas City Fire Department for almost 17 years, is a fire apparatus operator at Station 36 at East 99th Street and Holmes Road. The near drowning shows the importance of everyone having some CPR training.
“You never know when something like this is going to happen, and the worst case is you can’t do anything because you know what to do,” Hullinger said.
Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins, a fire department spokesman, said the fact that Hullinger and the security guard were there and both knew CPR played a huge role in saving the young child’s life.
The fire department doesn’t know the security guard’s name. Hullinger had stopped by on Tuesday, but a different person was working. For privacy concerns, they didn’t release her name.
Hopkins said the deputy chief is also reaching out to see if they can get her name so they can congratulate and thank her for her life-saving work.
“We were just lucky, you know, lucky that he was there and that she was there, and this young child is going to continue to live and hopefully have a very great life because of the work they did they did last night,” Hopkins said.
Not many people around
Hullinger said that the Coves neighborhood used to have two lifeguards on duty, but a couple of years ago, it switched to just having a security guard.
So when he heard the cry for help, Hullinger said he knew he had to do something.
“There wasn’t very many people there and I felt like, you know this was my responsibility at this time, so I was going to do everything it took to try to get the outcome that we got,” he said. “We were fortunate.”
Hulliinger, who has children, said the incident is a parent’s worst nightmare. That was going through his mind as he worked to save the child’s life. The child’s siblings were also there. He’s pretty sure an older sister was the one he told to call 911.
“It hits home,” said Hullinger, who said his children are older than the child he helped save. “I remember them being young and being in the same pool that we were at and about the same age.”
He doesn’t consider himself a hero. Hullinger said he was doing his job.
“I’m glad I could be there to help, and I hope that their child is making a full recovery and is back swimming within a few days,” Hullinger said.
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