A 16-year-old girl in Ocean County helped save a newborn baby’s life by putting CPR skills she had learned just two days earlier.
Ariana Leonardis and her 15-year-old cousin, Riley Porter, sprang into action on the evening of Oct. 24 when they encountered frantic parents pleading for help for their 3-week-old baby in Tuckerton.
“I was in the Wawa parking lot, and I heard this couple screaming,” Porter said.
The emergency unfolded in the parking lot of a former urgent care facility, where the parents were desperately trying to get help because their baby wasn’t breathing.
Porter called 911.
“I’m with these two people, and they’re saying that their baby isn’t breathing,” he told the dispatcher.
Meanwhile, Leonardis approached the parents and offered to help.
“I walked over I just was like, do you need me to perform CPR? And they told me yes,” Leonardis said.
Just two days earlier, Leonardis had completed CPR training in a human development and childcare class at Ocean County Vocational Technical School’s Brick Center.
Now, the Pinelands Regional High School junior was putting those newly learned skills to the test in a life-or-death situation.
“All I can really think of in the moment was this, I need to get this baby back to life,” Leonardis said.
“I had the baby on the ground, and I did chest compressions,” she said.
Moments later, there were signs the newborn was responding.
“He’s starting to cry. I think it went okay,” someone said during the 911 call.
“It started coughing at first and then it started like crying a little bit. I felt relieved,” Leonardis said.
Leonardis wasn’t the only cousin who relied on something recently learned in school.
Porter said the baby’s parents were pleading for help in Spanish. A lesson he had learned in Spanish class just the week before helped him understand that the baby wasn’t breathing.
When asked whether paying attention in Spanish class helped him figure out what the parents were saying, Porter had a simple answer.
“Yeah, it’s actually my favorite class,” he said.
The cousins said the baby was conscious when ambulance crews arrived. The newborn was then taken to a nearby hospital.
After the emergency, Leonardis called her mother, Kirah Leonardis, to tell her what had happened.
“She was just like, I just saved a baby and I thought she was kidding. And I’m like, are you serious? And she said, yeah,” Kirah Leonardis said.
Michelle Keenan, Leonardis’ human development and childcare instructor at Ocean County Vocational Technical School, praised her student’s ability to put her training into action so quickly.
“I think the fact that she was able to apply that knowledge, you know, two days later, just speaks volumes,” Keenan said.
“Knowledge is power. It empowers them,” she added.
For Leonardis’ mother, the experience was an emotional reminder of what her daughter and nephew accomplished together.
“It almost makes me get emotional just thinking how she not only saved a life, but she executed it perfectly,” Kirah Leonardis said.
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC Philadelphia. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC Philadelphia journalist edited the article for publication.
