Grand Junction woman helps save dying baby

Click to Enlarge Vicki Earich smiles thinking about baby Benjamin, whose life she helped save last month in Wheat Ridge, a Denver suburb. Earich walked Benjamin’s dad through the steps of CPR to get Benjamin breathing again. MARIJA B. VADER | FREE PRESS

BY MARIJA B. VADER
Grand Junction CO Clorado
May 9, 2008

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    Vicki Earich still has a hard time believing that she saved a baby’s life.

    “I think about that lifeless baby and think — I did it. I saved a life. I don’t know how to explain it. I think about it all the time. It’s heartwarming to be put in that situation that day,” Earich said, pausing to consider the wonder she lives in every moment since April 14. “It was like I was there for a reason.”

    Benjamin Schenk was a tender 28 days old the day he nearly died — the day he met Earich.

    Benjamin was riding in his car seat with his parents, Dave Schenk and Heather Mrzlack, westbound on Interstate 70 in Arvada, a suburb west of Denver, when he started choking.

    Schenk and Mrzlack were shopping for land, driving into the foothills. They made it to 32nd and I-70 when Benjamin started crying.

    Because of Mrzlack’s maternal instincts, which told her that that particular cry was different than the others, “We decided to pull off,” Schenk said. “He was obviously agitated.”

    Schenk noted his newborn son looked pale when the baby “took that last breath.”

    As Benjamin began slipping away, Mrzlack took Benjamin out of his car seat and ran toward the Circle-K off Youngsfield Street and I-70, trying to summon help while her husband called 911 on his cell phone.

    Another woman took Benjamin from Mrzlack and hit him on the back, trying to dislodge something that might have been caught in his throat.

    “That wasn’t working,” so Schenk took him.

    Earich, who lives in Grand Junction and works at Mesa Developmental Services, was at the station filling her car.

    At that point in Benjamin’s ordeal, Earich’s calm countenance and knowledge of infant cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) worked its magic.

    “I had the baby’s head in my hands,” Earich recalled. “I told the dad I was going to walk him through infant CPR, and I did.”

    First, they checked the airway.

    “He wasn’t breathing. He was lifeless,” Earich said.

    In her calm voice, Earich told Schenk to cover the baby’s mouth and nose with his mouth and give two shallow breaths.

    “He did, and nothing happened.”

    So, just like the textbook instructs, they repositioned Benjamin’s head, pulled his little chin down and gave two more breaths.

    Still, nothing.

    Earich then added chest compressions to the action. Two fingers together, placed between the baby’s nipples, push down twice.

    Still, nothing.

    They added another cycle of breaths and chest compressions, and the baby started to respond.

    “The baby started crying and his nose started bleeding,” Earich recalled.

    Once Benjamin started crying, everyone breathed a sigh of relief — if the baby’s crying, he’s breathing, Schenk said.

    Then, the ambulance arrived and whisked the family to Children’s Hospital in Denver. At the time, Schenk asked Earich her name, “and it totally escaped me.”

    Now, looking back at that hectic five minutes, “The only thing I remember was this calm voice,” Schenk said. “She was instructing me — as to what I was doing. It was just this calm voice. It really helped.

    “If she wouldn’t have been there, I might not have been able to resuscitate him.”

    Only this week, Schenk and Earich learned each other’s names and telephone numbers.

    Before speaking to Earich, Schenk said he would like to thank her.

    “I would tell her she is an angel — thank you for helping save the life of our son.”

    Earich, along with Jessica Imamovic, the manager of the Circle-K, now encourage others to learn adult and infant CPR.

    “It’s like a wake up call. You never know what’s going to happen. Knowing CPR benefits yourself and other people as well,” Imamovic said. During those hectic minutes, “I was watching everybody’s faces. They’re so numb, they don’t know what to do.”

    But Earich had been trained and takes adult CPR annually. She discovered that details on infant CPR “just came flooding back to me.”

    Still, she asked the EMT if she did it right, and “he asked me, are you a nurse?” she said laughing.

    “It was awesome. It was ... I don’t know how to explain it.”

    Despite her family insisting she’s a hero, “I don’t think so,” she said. “I just think I was at the right place at the right time. God’s will.”

    Benjamin spent six days at Children’s Hospital, Schenk said. There, doctors found Benjamin aspirated and choked on his own spittle.

    Heather instantly said, “‘That doesn’t sound good. Let’s pull over.’ She had that instinct,” Schenk said.

    Reach Marija B. Vader at mvader@gjfreepress.com.