Officer reunited with baby he delivered, saved at the border

(Gray News) – An officer with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol was recently united with the baby girl he delivered and saved with measures that led to her first breaths six years ago.

“I am just happy that I was there to help,” Officer J. Lott said in a news release. “To be able to assist in something like that is absolutely amazing, and it’s a memory I will have for the rest of my life.”

When Lott responded to an emergency call on Dec. 8, 2016, he found a woman in a car going into labor at the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

He used his training and experience as an emergency medical technician to bring the baby girl into the world.

“I just trusted my training. I knew if I remained calm, the mother, the father and everyone around me would stay calm,” Lott recalled. “Although deep down inside I did not want to fail them.”

The baby was breech, adding another challenge to delivering an infant in a car at one of the busiest land borders in the country.

After a long birthing process, Alexa Garcia came into the world, but she was turning blue and wasn’t breathing.

“I quickly administered chest compressions, and after about five or six, she started crying,” Lott recalled. “I was already on my knees, and I just buckled. I remember saying to myself, ‘Just keep on breathing, baby, just keep on breathing, please.’”

The Garcia family has tried to locate the officer who helped deliver their baby for years with no success. After learning they had the wrong name, CBP officials were able to connect the family and Lott.

Two months shy of Alexa’s 6th birthday, Lott waited at the San Ysidro Port of Entry to meet the little girl he had once held in his arms on that unforgettable December morning.

“I believe God put an angel in our hands that day. That angel saved my wife and baby’s life,” Alexa’s dad said.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the room as Alexa bounded through the door with a huge smile. She walked directly to Lott and gave him a tight hug.

Lott choked up when Alexa gave him a framed photo of him holding her in his arms on the day she was delivered.

She smiled when Lott gave her a stuffed teddy bear, complete with its own CBP uniform. The agency said Alexa lit up with a smile, clutched her new bear and thanked Lott with another hug.

Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.