National Guardsman Saves Choking Newborn Near Fort Bliss Shoppette

It’s easy to tell Spec. Sean Perkins and wife Amanda are new parents by the way they dote on their newborn daughter Kylie.

“Any time she makes a noise, I kind of jump, too,” said Perkins. “Words can’t describe how much I love her.”

Mom Amanda feels the same way. “I would do anything for her, anything just to make sure she was OK,” she said.

The couple got the scare of their lives about a week ago while Perkins was deployed overseas in Bahrain. Some of Amanda’s relatives came down to Fort Bliss to help the new mom shop for baby Kylie when the newbron started choking. “My mom was in the back seat with the baby when she started choking on her formula, her lips were all blue,” said Amanda.

Amanda said her sister was driving at the time. They pulled over near a Fort Bliss shoppette when they realized they needed serious medical help for baby Kylie. “I just want to cry because it could have been much worse. My daughter could have been dead. She was only one week old when it happened,” she said.

Amanda got out of the car and screamed for help. She said a young man had just left the shoppette with arms full of groceries when he heard Amanda’s cries. That’s when he dropped everything and ran to the rescue. “He just started patting her back and doing everything he had to do to get her breathing again,” said Amanda.

The baby was rushed to the hospital where she got a doctor’s diagnosis. “Kylie has severe reflux,” said Amanda. “Basically when she swallows her food it comes right back up; she can’t keep it down.”

As soon as Dad Sean, still overseas, found out about the incident, he said he felt horrible. “I felt helpless, I felt trapped. I wanted to be with my wife and my daughter to support them. I talked to my chain of command and they worked with the Red Cross to get me home (about three days after the incident),” he said.

The Perkins family will be together only a few more days before Sean must redeploy. Baby Kylie is safe and healthy. She is strapped up to a special monitoring device and has started drinking a specific kind of formula to help with her illness. “I’m petrified (about Kylie’s health),” said Amanda. “I just have to be there for her.”

The grateful family said the National Guardsman who saved their baby’s life is based out of Fort Worth and just happened to be at Fort Bliss for training on the day he saved Kylie’s life. “Words will never be able to describe how thankful I am that he brought her back,” said Amanda.