The eight-year-old girl whose life was nearly cut short by a mouthful of bacon was reunited with the Ottawa cop who saved her life.
Emmah Ross was celebrating her older brother’s birthday at the Chances R Restaurant on Saturday, when she bit off more breakfast than she could chew. That’s when off-duty Const. Tina Pippy sprang into action from a neighboring booth, putting her life-saving skills to work.
Security video from inside the restaurant shows Pippy calmly leaving her table and asking if Emmah was choking. She then swiftly applied three thrusts to the child’s abdomen.
The whole incident took just 15 seconds.
“She saved my daughter’s life. That’s a big deal,” Emmah’s mother Stefanie told CTV Ottawa on Monday. “(She) just did it, (and) went back to her table, but at the end of the day it was a very big deal.”
Stefanie managed to thank Pippy, and even snapped a photo of the officer with her daughter, but didn’t manage to get her full name before she left.
Pippy came forward after spotting a CTV Ottawa report about the rescue. Two days later, a grateful Emmah and Stefanie presented her with flowers and several hugs in an emotional reunion.
“I’m so grateful I was here, and that we came into each other’s lives,” said Pippy. “I guess we are connected forever.”
Stefanie said the officer’s fast-acting first aid has inspired her to take a CPR course in case something like this happens again.
While many at the restaurant that day were quick to call Pippy a hero, she said any officer would have done the same.
“I was just reacting. I wasn’t doing anything over and above,” she said. “But when I saw how grateful she was and her mom was, it had a little bit of a different meaning (for me).”
As for Emmah, she said the experience was “pretty scary,” and recommends breakfast diners always “ask for your bacon crisp.”
With a report from CTV Ottawa
