{"id":103297,"date":"2017-09-30T15:07:04","date_gmt":"2017-09-30T21:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-police-officer-credited-with-saving-babys-life\/"},"modified":"2017-09-30T15:07:04","modified_gmt":"2017-09-30T21:07:04","slug":"durango-police-officer-credited-with-saving-babys-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-police-officer-credited-with-saving-babys-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango Police officer credited with saving baby\u2019s life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Cpl.
Cpl. Juan Gallegos, of the Durango Police Department, was reunited Monday with a child he saved from choking.<\/span>Courtesy of Durango Police Department<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Durango police officer is credited with saving a baby\u2019s life last weekend while responding to an unrelated call.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Cpl. Juan Gallegos was dispatched to an in-town apartment complex, where a man armed with a knife was threatening suicide, according to the Durango Police Department\u2019s Facebook page<\/a> and Chief of Police Kamran Afzal. While Gallegos was waiting for backup, a dispatcher said the man had a torch and was threatening to burn down the apartment complex.<\/p>\n

Gallegos ran into the building, and just as he contacted the man with the torch, a neighbor in the complex frantically ran up to Gallegos saying her baby was choking, according to the Facebook post.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told the person (the suicidal man) I have to be right back, went up there, called the medics and then turned the baby over and did the Heimlich maneuver,\u201d Afzal said. \u201cThe baby started crying, and (the officer) handed the baby right back to the mom, and then went and handled the gentleman that was in the mental crisis situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely, he did save the baby\u2019s life,\u201d the chief said.<\/p>\n

Gallegos talked to the man who was threatening suicide about getting help, and another officer took him to the hospital.<\/p>\n

All in a day\u2019s work, Afzal said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s part of the job,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you talk to most cops \u2026 that\u2019s part of the DNA, whether it\u2019s the police department guys or the fire department folks. You do your job, and you just move on to the next call, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallegos mentioned the incident in a report, but he didn\u2019t make a big deal of it, Afzal said. The mother of the child called police to say if it wasn\u2019t for Gallegos, she would have lost her baby, he said.<\/p>\n

Gallegos is friendly and dedicated to his job, the chief said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways has a smile on his face, every time I see him,\u201d Afzal said.<\/p>\n

Gallegos returned to the apartment complex on Monday to check on the baby.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are happy to say that the baby is doing very well thanks to Cpl. Gallegos\u2019 quick response in administering first aid,\u201d the Facebook post says.<\/p>\n

shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

on unrelated call when child started choking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1065,714],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-103297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-durango-police-department","tag-human-interest"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103297"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=103297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}