Chris Scott is a 911 dispatcher who saved his own son from choking. Scott is a Marine reservist who recently returned from Iraq. His calm, competent demeanor is being credited with saving his son’s life.
When Janna Scott called 911 on February 4, 2010, it was her own husband, Chris Scott who answered her emergency call. The couple’s 6-month-old son Jacob was choking. He had stopped breathing and lost consciousness. The couple report that they recognized each others voices, but the dire circumstance didn’t leave them time to chat. They got straight to the business of saving their son’s life.
Janna Scott said she was ‘freaking out’ when she called 911. Jacob’s eyes were rolling back in his head when Chris Scott, 23-years-old, answered her emergency call. The couple live in Lacey, Washington and Scott, an Iraq War Veteran, is training to be emergency dispatcher. Emergency workers are not supposed to involve themselves professionally in cases that involve their families. However, in this incident, there wasn’t time to transfer the call to another dispatcher as the baby had already lost consciousness for about a minute to a minute and a half.
The Thurston County, Washington dispatcher calmly talked his wife through the procedure necessary to clear their infant son’s airway. Tammy Clark, Scott’s supervisor, remarked on how well Scott had handled the call. When she told him that he had saved that boy’s life, Scott responded by telling her, ‘That was my son.’
He later said that he had always dreaded a call like that. He admitted that he was concerned as to how he’d handle something like that, but said, ‘I guess I handled it pretty good.’
Chris Scott returned from his year-long deployment to Iraq in September 2009. The Marine tanker first returned to Germany and then came back to his hometown near Olympia, Washington with his wife and baby in December 2009. Janna Scott is a native of Hanover, Germany. The couple live in Lacey, Washington.
The method used by Chris Scott, the 911 dispatcher who saved his own son, was to instruct his wife to lay Jacob face down on her lap and pat his back. When she did that he coughed up a small piece of plastic that had apparently fallen to the floor from the window seal and Jacob had put into his mouth. Scott sent emergency responders to the home, but they did not have to transport the baby to the hospital.
