Heart-stopping footage shows the moment a Pennsylvania Taco Bell manager took action and saved the life of an 11-month-old baby who suddenly stopped breathing in the restaurant’s parking lot.
Natasha Long, a mother of two, screamed when Taco Bell manager Becky Arbaugh stopped by the fast food chain on Saturday and found her baby, Miles, not breathing. He says he was lucky to be nearby.
“When I pulled him out, he turned blue and passed away.” she told WPVI. “At that point I completely blacked out. I didn’t know what to do.”
Surveillance camera footage showed Long starting screaming in a panic, warning Arbaugh, dropping his headset and running outside.
“I threw the headset. I ran outside,” Arbaugh told police. “I took the baby and started doing chest compressions, and the baby finally started breathing.”
The video shows Arbaugh taking baby Miles from his mother as another person stands by to call 911.
Arbaugh can then be seen performing chest compressions on the baby as the panicked mother stands next to the baby.
Arbaugh, a mother of two, said her daughter went through a similar situation. She said Long was able to keep her cool during her crisis because of her own experience.
“My daughter went through something similar when my kids were little, so I know how she feels,” she said. “If I kept her calm and I stayed calm, her thoughts that her baby wouldn’t be able to breathe again never entered my mind.”
Miles started breathing again and was taken to St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital.
The cause of his breathing difficulties was not immediately clear, but he is still being treated at the hospital and efforts are being made to determine the cause.
The day after the incident, Long called the Taco Bell store to thank Arbaugh.
“I couldn’t be more grateful to Becky,” Long said. “She saved her son’s life.”
Despite the well-deserved praise, Arbaugh says she would have done what any other mother would have done in this situation.
“I saw myself as a mother to another mother who needed help,” Arbaugh said.
Long and Arbaugh have been in touch since Saturday, and Arbaugh even offered to be with Miles at the hospital so his parents could rest, he said.
