MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Officer Joe Matthew was heartbroken for a grieving family on Saturday. He did everything he could to save a newborn baby who was injured during a car crash in Miami-Dade County’s Golden Glades neighborhood. And he was in tears when he learned the baby didn’t make it.
Matthew was on his way to work on Friday night for the Surfside Police Department when he saw the mangled cars. He had just taken a refresher course on cardiopulmonary resuscitation two weeks ago, so he knew what to do when a mother who was holding her newborn baby begged him for help.
It was Matthew’s first time performing CPR on a tiny baby, so he was gentle and careful, and asked the distraught mother for help. A witness recorded a video showing the frantic efforts to save the baby in the area of Northwest Second Avenue at Northwest 157th Street.
There was a nurse who was also there to help. The baby’s father, who suffered minor injuries, and the baby’s two sisters watched while witnesses surrounded them and prayed loudly for a miracle. Matthew saw the mother and her baby leave with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel.
The baby’s father, who held one of his daughters while Matthew tried to save the baby, was also hospitalized. Witnesses said Matthew’s willingness to help before paramedics arrived was an act of heroism.
Paramedics used air rescue to rush the baby and his mom to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center where a doctor pronounced the baby dead. Miami-Dade traffic homicide detectives are investigating the baby’s death and the cause of the crash.
Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editors Wilson Louis and Emily Hales and Photojournalist Carlos Castro contributed to this report.