Deputy who aided newborn receives Lifesaver Award

The newborn girl on the bathroom floor was purple and not breathing.

Spokane County sheriff’s Deputy Randy Watts saw the medical call pop up on his patrol car’s computer screen just after 1:30 a.m. one day in July 2014 and decided to see if he could help.

“I was only a couple miles away,” he said. “I figured medics would be there first.”

But Watts got to the home on South Fox Road first and immediately took charge, drawing on the training he received as a helicopter search-and-rescue swimmer in the U.S. Navy for eight years.

He started CPR but noticed his rescue breaths weren’t helping much. He realized there was probably fluid in her lungs.

“I flipped her over and did some back slaps,” he said. “A good amount of fluid came out of her nose.”

He continued CPR as Spokane Valley Fire Department Capt. Chris Cornelius, a paramedic, arrived with his crew of EMTs. They all crowded into the family’s bathroom to help.

“The mom was sitting between the toilet and the shower,” Cornelius said. “I was standing in the bathtub trying to help this baby. The baby was minutes old and still attached to the umbilical cord.”

Mom and baby were taken to a hospital, and Watts rode in the ambulance with the baby.

“He was actually holding the baby while we were performing life-saving measures,” Cornelius said. Watts was helping keep the baby warm by holding her, he said.

“He was in the right place, doing a great job,” Cornelius said of Watts. “He was performing everything we needed done.”

Last week, fire Chief Bryan Collins presented Watts with a Lifesaver Award for his role that morning. As he presented Watts with a plaque, Collins noted that Watts also recently saved the life of a stabbing victim with arterial bleeding.

“I might sign this guy up,” Collins said.

Cornelius nominated Watts for the award and said the minutes he spent performing CPR before the fire department crew arrived were critical in saving her life. “That couple of minutes was absolutely pivotal,” he said. “Without his initiative and proper intervention, the outcome could have been very different.”

The baby’s father, Joshua Newton, said last week that he hadn’t heard about the award but was grateful to Watts and the fire department for saving his daughter.

“When they came in, they were very professional and took over,” he said. “We don’t go back to that night very often. It was a bit scary.”

His daughter, whom he declined to name, suffered no ill effects from her difficult birth and just celebrated her first birthday, Newton said.

“She’s an absolute delight,” he said. “She might just be our smartest kid. She runs around after her older brothers.”

Both Watts and Cornelius are pleased that the little girl is doing well. Cornelius said he tried to find out how she was doing soon after the event, but the hospital wouldn’t give him any information because of privacy laws.

“It would have broken my heart to have it go the other way,” Watts said.