Traffic stop in the US turns into rescue of 9-month-old

"Help!" a male voice screamed from behind.

Herman turned and saw a man coming toward him. The man wore a look of such fright that Herman thought he was being chased. The officer looked beyond the man, didn't see a pursuer and returned his gaze to him.

That's when he saw an infant in the man's arms.

"She's not breathing," the man said, handing over a 9-month-old girl, the daughter of his stepson.

Over the next few minutes, Herman's response - and that of a passing out-of-state firefighter who joined him - would be credited with possibly saving the girl's life. She was back in West Virginia with her parents Monday, hospitalized but doing well.

"It's like she never missed a beat at all," James Cushman, 24, the father of the girl, Kenzlee Mae Cushman, said Monday evening.

Kenzlee Mae was born with a heart defect and needed an operation at 3 months to cure a murmur, her father said. Her recovery seemed to be going well.

A few days ago, Cushman's mother and stepfather took the baby to a family reunion in North Carolina. During drives, Cushman's mother likes to ride in the back seat with her granddaughter, and on Sunday afternoon as the couple headed home through Maryland, she saw Kenzlee Mae suddenly roll her eyes. She swiped inside the child's mouth to make sure she wasn't choking and noticed foam. The couple pulled over.

Herman quickly started talking to them. He cradled the baby in one arm, holding the back of her head in his palm. He couldn't see signs of breathing or find a pulse. The child's skin appeared to have turned slightly blue. Her arms were limp. She was silent.

Herman, 36, was on the inside shoulder of the northbound lanes of I-270, near Muddy Branch Road. He started chest compressions using two fingers.

He was joined by a man who had stopped on the southbound lanes of I-270. Officials said he had been at a National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and identified him as Brody Channell, a firefighter from Little Rock. As Channell took the child, Herman got back on his radio. He noticed the child start to move, start to breathe, start to scream.

All good signs, thought Herman, who is the son of a police officer and has a 3-year-old son and whose wife is due to give birth any day to a daughter.

Nearby in his vehicle, Montgomery County Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief Stephen Mann heard a call of an "infant code" over his radio, meaning an infant in cardiac arrest. He drove to the scene. Mann credited the child's caretakers for stopping and Herman for turning his full attention to them.

"If that child makes a full recovery, it's only because of the quick actions of that officer and the wherewithal of the family to stop," Mann said.

An ambulance soon arrived and took the child to Shady Grove Medical Center. Herman had a chance to speak with the baby's grandmother.

"I can't believe it," the woman said inconsolably. "My son trusted me with her. He trusted me."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Herman said. "Everything is going to be fine."

Reached Monday at a hospital in West Virginia, Kenzlee Mae's father said everything appeared to be headed in the right direction. His daughter was happily playing with stuffed animals, including her favorite pig. "She's doing great," he said.

As for the woman Herman had pulled over, she got away with only a warning not to drive so fast. That was Herman's intention all along. He was off duty at the time. He'd shut down his computer. He just wanted to tell her to slow down.