The baby wasn’t breathing.
That’s what Officer Desaussure saw when he reached the car — a newborn, just delivered, silent in the backseat. The mother had given birth moments before, somewhere on the side of a Cobb County road, because there hadn’t been time to make it to the hospital.
It was February 12, just after 5 p.m. Desaussure had been working a traffic stop when a man pulled up, frantic. His wife was in labor. The baby was coming. They weren’t going to make it.
Desaussure left the stop and ran.
By the time he got there, the child had already arrived. But something was wrong. No cry. No movement. Just the kind of silence that turns seconds into hours.
He started chest compressions. Small, careful, urgent. After several rounds, the baby gasped. Then breathed.
Cobb County Fire and Emergency Services arrived shortly after and took the mother and newborn to the hospital. Both were released a few days later.
The Prestons, the family at the center of it all, sent a photo to the department once they got home. In it, they’re smiling. The baby is fine, eyes closed, breathing easy.
Desaussure had been in the right place. He’d done what he was trained to do. And in the span of a few minutes on the shoulder of a road, a life that had just begun got the chance to keep going.
