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Chicago Police Officers Honored For Reviving Newborn Who Wasn't Breathing

CHICAGO (CBS) -- After helping revive a baby who was born premature and unresponsive, two Chicago police officers have been named the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation's officers of the month.

Ogden District Field Training Officer Mark Palozzolo and a new recruit, Officer Maritza Bautista, responded to a 911 call of an infant girl who wasn't breathing on June 12.

"The woman had just given birth during her 34th week of pregnancy," said Phil Cline, executive director of the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation. "The officers found the woman inside a tiny bathroom, holding an unresponsive newborn."

Officers Save Baby
Ogden District officers Mark Palazzolo and Maritza Bautista talk about performing CPR on a newborn baby who was born premature in a home in Little Village. (Credit: CBS)

Cline said both officers immediately went to work. Seeing that the baby's umbilical cord was still attached, under a dispatcher's directions, Palozzolo pinched the baby's umbilical cord closed, and began performing CPR – mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions.

"He gently took the child from [her] mother's hands, and began puffing breaths into the tiny lungs," he said.

Bautista calmed the mother while Palozzolo tried to revive the infant.

"Just tried to distract her a little, and asked her questions," she said.

Paramedics arrived about four minutes after the officers began CPR, and took the baby to Mount Sinai Hospital, where the girl's condition was stabilized.

"We took care of that child as if it were our own," Palozzolo said.

Cops Baby
Chicago police officers Mark Palazzolo and Maritza Bautista were named officers of the month by the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation on Oct. 10, 2017, four months after they helped save a newborn baby who wasn't breathing after she was born premature. (Credit: CBS)
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