Rowlett officer rescues unresponsive toddler

A 22-month-old girl is alive and well thanks to the heroic action of a Rowlett police officer.

Officer Patrick Ray had just logged off his patrol cars computer, essentially clocking out for lunch on Sunday when a call went out for an unresponsive toddler nearby. 

He was so close, the officer clocked back in and raced to the call, not knowing what he'd find when arrived.  

“The whole time I'm going through, I'm just playing through my head,” said Ray. “I didn't know if it was a drowning. I didn't know if she was choking on something.”

With a frightened father on the line with 911, the child's mother, Tammy Norvell, carried her limp daughter outside toward the sound of approaching sirens.
 
“It was the scariest thing to hand her over to somebody I didn't know, but I put all my faith and all my trust in him that he knew what to do,” said Tammy. 

In those moments, Tammy did not know what was wrong with her daughter. 
   
Minutes earlier, they were playing in a baby pool and running around the yard.
  
“She just goes real limp on me,” said Tammy.

When tammy picked up her daughter, Bexley, something was wrong.  

“Her lips started turning blue, and I called for my husband and he called 911,” she said.
 
As Officer Ray arrived, his training kicked in.

He looked for blockages in Bexley’s airway once, then again.

Finally, Bexley could breathe.

“It's so emotional, thinking if it weren't for him I could be picking out a casket today, living every parent’s nightmare and I'm not,” said Tammy.
 
Later, an X-ray showed Bexley swallowed a coin. Her parents still don’t know where she found it.

He went to the hospital later to check on Bexley and admits that this call got to him.

His own son is 12 months old, and he has another who is 5. 
 
“I can't repay him,” said Tammy. “There's no way. There's no way."

Tammy got on Facebook to thank the officer. That post kept getting shared and shared.  

It led to Tammy connecting with the officer's wife on Facebook, and their families have now met.