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Pennsylvania police officer hailed as hero for saving newborn baby’s life

PITTSBURGH — A Pennsylvania police officer is being hailed as a hero after she helped save the life of a newborn baby in Pittsburgh.

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According to WPXI-TV, Joe Schleicher and his wife were on the way to the hospital with their 9-day-old daughter, Olivia, on Saturday when the child stopped breathing.

“We were sitting at a red light at that point,” Schleicher told WPXI.

The couple took the infant out of her car seat and flagged down an officer in a nearby vehicle, the news outlet reported.

“I heard beeping next to me,” Pleasant Hills police Officer Kristin Mitrisin told WPXI. “I saw a male driver waving to me. I put down the window.”

Mitrisin said she immediately pulled over and began doing compressions on the infant when another bystander offered to help, WPXI reported. She asked the man, who turned out to be a corrections officer, to retrieve a defibrillator from her vehicle, according to the news outlet.

Schleicher told WPXI that it was “very scary to have your child in the back of a truck with AEDS on her,” and added that the baby “started turning blue.”

After a few more minutes of compressions, the infant began to cry, WPXI reported. The baby was taken to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, were doctors said she will need surgery for a heart condition, according to the news outlet.

Schleicher said he is grateful for Mitrisin’s quick thinking and hopes the family can meet up with them after Olivia is released from the hospital, WPXI reported.

“I feel like she may feel as proud as we are, knowing that she saved the baby,” he said.

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