By Steve Neavling
A rookie TSA agent leaped over a conveyor belt at Newark Liberty International Airport to save a baby who wasn’t breathing.
Cecilia Morales, a trained emergency medical technician who joined the agency in late October, sprung to action when a mother screamed for help. Morales shouted instructions to the mother, “but she was so nervous and I knew if I didn’t get over there, it wasn’t going to be a good outcome.”
“I jumped over the checkpoint conveyor belt rollers and she gave me the baby,” Morales said in a news release. “I performed the infant Heimlich maneuver on him.”
Holding the 2-month-old baby to keep his airway open, Morales patted him on the back. After the first effort failed, she did it again, and the baby began to breathe again.
As an EMT, Morales previously saved adults and children with the Heimlich, but she never tried it on a baby.
“Two months on the job and she’s literally a life-saver,” Thomas Carter, TSA’s federal security director for New Jersey said. “Officer Morales’s quick reaction and actions helped ensure that this family will have a happy holiday season. Her actions were inspiring.”
TSA Manager Ayrana Frazier added, “In the moment Officer Morales was selfless, and her priority was to save a life. We are proud to call her one of our own.”
