A Los Angeles police officer is being hailed a hero for saving a choking toddler earlier this week. Sergeant Bumjin Kim was patrolling the Echo Park neighborhood in L.A. when a hysterical father ran up to him holding the limp body of his three-year-old daughter. The father hands the child to Kim and begs him to help the unconscious girl. Kim takes the child and calls for paramedics.

As the girl’s father and mother scream for the officer to help, Kim begins to examine the girl. “She had something in her mouth so I tried to sweep her mouth two or three times,” Kim recalls. “The last time I got something out.” In dramatic bodycam footage released by the LAPD, Kim can be seen turning the child over and patting her back. Then she regains consciousness and starts to cry. The child was then taken to the hospital where she was reportedly in stable condition.

Kim’s supervisor Lieutenant Raul Jovel calls Kim a leader and a hero. “When I approached Sergeant Kim, he is such a humble man, but when I saw this video I was speechless. I teared up.” says Jovel. “I have three kids. A lot of officers have told me, ‘I could not have done what he did.'” Jovel plans to invite the child’s family to come and meet the officer who saved their daughter’s life. Kim, a 15-year LAPD veteran, has a three-year-old child, too, and after the incident, the gravity of it all hit him. “At the time it really didn’t really cross my mind because it was about trying to get the baby breathing again,” he says. “Ten minutes later, I started to feel it. The sigh of relief and how fragile life can be.”

Source: NY Post

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