A Pottsville, Arkansas, family is forever grateful for the quick thinking of a 23-year-old rookie cop who saved their infant child's life earlier this year.
According to KARK-TV in Little Rock, the incident took place early this summer when 3-week-old Grady Chronister began choking on anti-gas drops.
After receiving being told of the incident by dispatch, Officer Cody Hubbard rushed to the scene.
"There wasn't a whole lot going on, and then within seconds — like this job does — it just went to chaos," Hubbard told CNN. "The whole way I was heading there, I was saying a prayer because I didn't want the worst that was going through my mind to happen."
By the time Hubbard got to the Chronister's home, Grady's breathing was extremely labored.
"I'd like to say my dad instincts kicked in," Hubbard told CNN. "And I didn't look at Grady as a baby. I looked at him as my child."
Hubbard didn't hesitate and began the Heimlich maneuver for infants.
"We were trying everything, and it seemed like he (Hubbard) knew exactly what to do," Joe Chronister, Grady's father, told KARK.
Body camera footage showed that Hubbard delivered several pats to Grady's back until the young boy began to cough.
"To hear it was only 24 pats is really surprising. To me, it seemed like I was doing a thousand pats a second," Hubbard told CNN.
"Got him breathing and got him crying, which is a good thing," Chronister told KARK. "He saved my baby's life."
After EMS checked out Grady and confirmed he was OK, Hubbard returned to his cruiser.
"When I got back into my car, I could feel that feeling in my stomach that I was just fixing to cry my eyes out," Hubbard told CNN. "As a cop, you don't like to seem weak, and so, I was like, 'I can't cry on camera.' So I turned the camera off as quick as I could, and once I saw that it was off, I just bawled like a baby."
Hubbard told CNN that his heroic actions were just part of the job.
"I don't like to look at myself as a hero. I did what any other officer would do that day," Hubbard said.
