A Waynesboro Police department officer’s body camera footage showed the moment when he saved a 6-month-old who was fighting for breath. Now the officer and baby, are reconnected through Dollar General.
“Okay, okay, you’re okay,” Sgt. Drummond was heard saying in the footage which was also captured by second responding officer Jose Colon’s body cam. “As I was looking down at that baby, I was looking at my grandson. I was looking at my children.” Drummond said. “I was horrified.”
It was even worse than facing gunshots for him, “I would prefer to look down the barrel of a gun than to look down at a baby in distress,” Drummond said.
Looking up back at him was 6-month-old AJ who was not breathing for minutes. And minutes feel like a lifetime when life itself is hanging on the line.
“The fact that I’m having this baby, holding this baby, the fact that I’m looking at the parents and they’re begging me, asking me to help them.” Drummond paused. “I was extremely nervous.”
The emergency call started with the call come over the Burke County Sheriff’s Office scanner. Drummond realized that he was the closest officer, and even though the emergency was not for his agency, he jumped into action.
“What you got, what you got?” he questioned. AJ’s dad Aerial responded, “we got a baby that isn’t breathing.” AJ’s aunt handed him over to Drummond. It was something Drummond had never encountered before, maybe except in training, this would be his second year as police sergeant.
Baby AJ is a child of two, a twin duo, and maybe the number two worked in Drummond’s favor today. Mom, Angel Collins, says his sister is always aware of when it’s not around. She would not have been the same without him. “Words can’t describe how grateful and thankful we are,” Angel said. Two fingers through the oke of CPR bonded two families at the corner of 6th Street. Drummond and AJ now bridged together forever.
“Thank you,” AJ’s dad said. Explaining, it feels like that’s all there is left to say. “It wasn’t an option, it was an obligation.” Drummond said his oath of office requires him to serve the community and says that he did what any law enforcement officer would have done in his place.
