Local News

Child Care Worker Uses CPR Training To Save Infant Daughter's Life

July 5, 2019 / 6:16 PM EDT / CBS New York

click to expand

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A Queens father's instinct and training kicked in just in time to save his daughter's life.

One-year-old Shiloh Hill is as bubbly, smiley and talkative as they come, but just last week, as her mom, Rachel, was getting ready to tuck Shiloh and her older brother, Zion, into bed, the infant suddenly went quiet.

Rasheen Hill, a child care worker in Queens, says he never had to use his 19 years of CPR training until he used it to save his own daughter's life in 2019. (Credit: CBS2)

"I'm holding her and she just kind of goes limp in my arms," Rachel Hill told CBS2's Nina Kapur. "Her eyes were just kind of off, and she wasn't responding."

The next thing she knew, her daughter's lips went blue.

She later learned Shiloh suffered from a febrile seizure, caused by a spike in fever.

"Even in crying and praying and you know, just, [thinking] Jesus, what's going on, it was terrifying," Rachel Hill said.

But timing is everything. Rachel Hill says just as Shiloh became unresponsive, her husband, Rasheen, walked through the front door.

Rasheen Hill, a child care worker in Queens, says he never had to use his 19 years of CPR training until he used it to save his own daughter's life in 2019. (Credit: CBS2)

Rasheen Hill says he was just getting home from work when he heard his wife screaming his name and his daughter, Shiloh's.

"Of course, my instincts are to rush upstairs and see what's going on, and I immediately see my daughter dangling in my wife's arms like a doll," he said. "She was just lifeless. It was the most terrifying moment ever."

Without skipping a beat, Rasheen Hill began CPR, a skill he learned while working at the New York City Children's Center.

"My 19 years of CPR training, which I've never used, not one single time on any of the hundreds of children that have passed through my program, never used it once," he said.

Until he used it to save his own daughter's life.

Rasheen Hill, a child care worker in Queens, says he never had to use his 19 years of CPR training until he used it to save his own daughter's life in 2019. (Credit: CBS2)

"It was definitely a blessing, definitely. I guess at this point now, the best thing that I brought out of that experience of my 19 years was learning this in order to be able to save my own child, save my own child's life with it," Rasheen Hill said.

Now, Rachel and Rasheen Hill are using their story, which could have ended very differently, to encourage every parent to get CPR training.

Rachel Hill works as an assistant principal and says her job does not require CPR training, but after this incident, she's already signed up for classes.