The strong bond between a Connecticut police officer and a baby girl whose life he saved five years ago continues to highlight the power of human connection over all else, including people’s backgrounds and races, he said. Det. Michael Harton of the North Haven, Connecticut Police Department told Fox News Digitial, “Everybody’s lives changed for the better that night, especially mine. We’re all human. We get so involved in the drama of the world. It’s nice to be able to take care of each other, no matter where we come from or what our situation may be.”
Harton, a police officer for 27 years, was on duty at a movie theater on March 4, 2019, when suddenly a woman came running out of a movie with a baby in her arms. “She was frantic,” Harton said. “You could tell as soon as I grabbed her that she was in distress.” That woman was Nikki Huckaby, and the baby was her three-month-old daughter Eimaan, who goes by the nickname Tooka.
The family was on their first outing since baby Tooka was born prematurely in December. Huckaby said, “She had never been left alone without me. So we brought her to the movie. And so I had just fed her, burped her and she was doing fine. But when I went to put her in her chair and was strapping her in, I noticed that she was not breathing.” Huckaby said she picked her baby up and patted her on the back, but nothing was working. “Although I knew CPR,” she said, “in that moment, everything in my mind went blank. I remember thinking, ‘I have to get outside this theater. I know there’s an officer out there.’”
Huckaby found Harton in the lobby area and told him, “My baby is not breathing.” She said, “The only thing I could do was call on the name of Lord God, Jesus. There was nothing else that I knew to do in that moment.” But Harton, also a trained EMT, jumped into action, performing a variation of the Heimlich maneuver for infants. Harton said, “I started with back blows, and that’s when she curled her back up and completely went limp on me. Then I started doing back blows, chest compressions, back blows, chest compressions.”
Everything went in slow motion, Harton said. He had never performed the Heimlich on a baby. “Talk about a rollercoaster ride of emotion,” he said. “I kept saying to myself, ‘Not on my watch. Not on my watch.’ She was just a peanut. Mom said she was less than 15 pounds. I think she was more like 10 pounds.” Huckaby remembers being panicked, screaming and praying as Harton tried to save her little girl. Then, suddenly, there was a cry — and everything was going to be okay. “Mom hugged me and thanked me,” Harton said. “She kept thanking God out loud after and was — and still is — super appreciative.”
Later, a fellow officer told Harton that once the baby started crying, he did not let her go right away, even to her mom. Harton said, “I checked in with [the] mom from time to time, but I didn’t want to be overbearing. A year to the date, they surprised me with a visit to the police station.” That’s where a family friendship began. Harton and his wife, Susan, began enjoying dinners with the mom and daughter.
They were invited to celebrate her birthdays, holidays and special occasions, such as Tooka’s first day of kindergarten last fall. “We just became part of each other’s lives,” Harton said. Eventually, Harton became known as “Uncle Mike” to Tooka and her family. He checks in to see how her homework is going and how report cards have turned out. Huckaby even asked Harton to be Tooka’s godfather — an honor he did not hesitate to accept.