Jimmy Hecht, Waterford

Bringing a child back to life is just about the most overwhelming, emotionally exhausting experience a person could ever live through. Jimmy Hecht had that experience and he’s still coming to terms with it.

It happened on a Saturday afternoon. Jimmy, a police officer, was off duty relaxing in his living room, waiting for his wife to come home from work when suddenly he heard banging on the door. It was his neighbor and she was hysterical, yelling for Jimmy to come. Her niece was in the backyard. She had been in the pool. When Jimmy arrived, he found the little girl on the ground – she wasn’t breathing. She had no pulse. Her skin was ashen.

Jimmy went to work. He started compressions. “It was so intense,” he remembers. It took several minutes but finally Jimmy got a response. “After she came to, I could hardly believe it. I had tears running down my face.”

Five months after saving the child, Jimmy Hecht was fighting death again. While on duty he received a call to assist an older man who was experiencing shortness of breath. When he arrived at the man’s home, he found the gentleman sitting on a lower stair. He asked some general questions of the man, then turned to talk to his wife. That’s when the man went into full cardiac arrest.

“I had the defibrillator with me so I quickly applied the pads to get a reading on his condition. The equipment indicated that he needed to be shocked, which I did.” After working on the Waterford resident for a few more minutes, Jimmy saw signs that he would be alright. “I was shocking him a second time when he suddenly sat up and asked what had happened to him. I thought I was going to need the pads myself.”