Mom Saves Daughter with On-the-Job CPR at Idaho Falls Diner
Stephanie Lucas
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – A local mother had to face a scary situation when her two-year-old daughter stopped breathing in an Idaho Falls restaurant.
While performing CPR is part of Klarisa Jensen’s job, she never thought she’d have to perform it on her own daughter, Ray, especially at the family’s favorite gathering spot, Smitty’s Pancake and Steak House.
“We were just here eating breakfast. We come every Sunday,” said Klarisa. “It’s our go-to place.”
The restaurant booth that delivered full tummies and held memories of smiles and laughter became filled with panic as Ray’s parents called 911 and told the dispatcher her daughter was not breathing.
Witnesses watched, their hearts racing in fear that Ray’s might stop, while a bystander told the 911 operator Ray had experienced a seizure.
The 911 operator asked if anyone was performing CPR, unaware that Klarisa had already started.
“My wife is giving us CPR…” says Ray’s other parent in the background, describing how Klarisa went into action. The 911 call goes on. “She is trained in it, and she does it for a living…”
Klarisa performed CPR on her daughter for 3 minutes until the ambulance arrived and paramedics took over.
“I don’t think that anybody else here would have known what to do,” she said, reflecting on the day no one else knew how to help. “So she would have been without oxygen for that whole duration of her seizure.”
Hospital tests came back normal, and Ray went back to being a happy toddler and playing with her big sister, Kelly. who had already experienced the pain of losing a sibling.
“I was thinking like, I can’t lose another sibling. And I was like, really scared about that,” she says.
“We lost our son at six and a half weeks two years ago,” Klarisa confirms. They [Ray and her brother] were supposed to grow up together, you know, twins, but not quite twins – you know, best friends. And so that heartache that we felt, I don’t ever want to feel that again.”
This experience has set Klarisa on a mission to spread the importance of knowing CPR.
“It’s scary,” she reflected. “I mean, what if it was somebody else’s kid? I keep having that thought of what if I hadn’t been CPR certified? But then I think of the reverse of that coin; what if it was a mom who lost a kid and had the thought of ‘What if I had been CPR certified?’”
After starting with her own family and getting adults CPR certified, Klarisa is now teaching CPR classes in her own community.
For more information on how to perform CPR on an infant, click HERE.