Police officer saved a 'lifeless' baby girl who wasn't breathing — 20 years later, got an invitation he couldn't refuse
An incident might help a person forge a lifelong bond with someone. An officer formed such a bond with a family after he saved a baby who had stopped breathing because of a choking incident. The cop arrived at the house after he got a call from the baby's parents. She had no vital signs and he took her to the hospital and continued giving her CPR on the way. 20 years after the incident, he got a chance to attend her wedding, per CBS Mornings.
The man, Captain Joseph Barca, had been on the Yonker's police force for 45 years at the time of the woman's wedding. He saved the baby, Shammarah Hamideh, in December 1993 and got a chance to attend her wedding, along with his wife, as the guest of honor back in 2014. The family was very excited to have the couple with them after they had travelled all the way from New York to Buffalo to attend Shammarah's wedding. "They love him. They're excited to see him. Everybody couldn't wait for this day just so they could see him and his wife Helen," Shammarah expressed. "He's like a second father. He's not just a friend or a hero. He's family," she went on.
On that fateful day in 1993, Sergeant Barca went in to attend to a baby who was not breathing. "I remember my mother yelling at the top of her lungs for my father: 'Shama! Shama! Shama! She is not breathing, she's choking!' Lifeless," Shammarah's older brother, Ahmad, recounted. "I took the child from the parents and checked for vital signs. Found none. I jumped into the backseat of the car with the baby, still doing CPR for the ride to the hospital," Barca shared. The baby's throat had cleared up, she was breathing on her own and her heart had started beating once again by the time they got to the hospital. "Her dad expected to hear the worst from me. And I said to him, 'Do you hear that baby crying?' And he said, 'Yeah.' And I said, 'That's your baby crying' and he just broke down from there."
The family moved to Buffalo after some time, but Barca and his wife stayed in touch with them through all of that. "Every year, they have never missed my birthday. And for Christmas, they always send a card and a check and a letter. They're just so sweet. It's the thought that counts, really," Shammarah pointed out. Barca got a call from the family, inviting him and his wife to the woman's wedding and he immediately accepted the invitation. "I said, 'Not my little baby! Of course I'll be there.'" The woman's mother said that she cried every time she saw Barca. "Thank god and thank you to him."
Barca was present when the woman walked down the aisle and it was a special moment for both of them as Barca considered saving Shammarah's life the most significant moment of his career. "This one ranks up on top and I go out there for a reason and the reason is to help people," Barca, an officer who worked on ground zero during the 9/11 attacks, remarked. The woman hoped to help people, just like Barca. "It makes me want to save people's lives the way he saved my life. Maybe I can be in someone's life twenty years later, just as he was." Shamarrah had recently graduated from nursing school at that time. That one incident defined her path and what she wanted to do with her life.