A toddler in Florida is being hailed a hero after accidentally calling 911 during his dad’s medical episode, saving his life.
The young boy contacted the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office just before 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning, according to press release posted to Facebook.
Deputy Nathan Kent told local news outlet CW44 that calls that are quickly hung up are “very common,” and often caused by people’s disabled cell phones getting into their children’s hands.
Deputy Kent still attended to the call. When he arrived, he noticed a toddler walking around the parking lot of the apartment complex with no clothes on. The child was reportedly unsupervised.
"Having a kid myself, I was more concerned, 'Hey, why is there an unsupervised kid?'" Kent said. "And that's when I started looking around, and I saw the apartment complex door open with a bunch of kid toys."
After noticing one of the doors to an apartment unit left open, the officer entered and found a man lying on the floor unresponsive.
The man was not breathing and had no pulse, according to the release. Deputy Kent began performing chest compressions and quickly called for additional medical care.
The man was rushed to the hospital for further treatment, and is expected to make a full recovery.
"The phone number, we looked later on, you could see that [the child] tried typing the password and it had 30 attempts that was the wrong password," Officer Kent said. "It was probably accidental that he hit the button."
The officer hopes other parents can learn from the incident.
"My biggest thing is teaching your kids what to do in times like this, saying, 'Hey, if something happens, go to a neighbor, get my phone, call somebody,'" he said. "Try to have some kind of setup just like a fire drill."
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