By Brian Shane

Staff Writer

(Oct. 18, 2024) When the 911 call came in for an unresponsive child at Frontier Town, it only took two minutes for sheriff’s deputies Noah King and Chris Parr to both respond from nearby road duty.

They found an 8-year-old girl unresponsive in her car seat, not breathing, and with no detectable pulse.

Acting Cpl. King pulled her from the minivan and watched as the girl’s eyes rolled back in her head. Laying her on the ground, Cpl. Parr began chest compressions. They rotated doing CPR to the point where they were administering life-saving aid for almost 15 minutes.

“It felt like an eternity,” King said in an interview.

It was the afternoon of July 10. Emergency medical crews arrived the on scene and took over. Tension filled the air as a growing crowd of people surrounded the life-saving efforts. First responders feared the girl was on the verge of not surviving.

Then – a shout from the paramedics: We have a pulse.

The girl was rushed to the Ocean City airport and airlifted to Nemours Children’s Hospital in Wilmington. By the next day, the deputies got word that she had returned to almost normal.

“It’s the kind of feel-good story people hope for,” King added.

Authorities later learned that the child, visiting with her family from Pennsylvania, suffers from a history of pre-existing medical issues due to a complex and rare diagnosis.

For first responders in moments of crisis, even when emotions are running high, King said that you have to push past it and focus on the matter at hand.

“We’re paid problems solvers, in more ways than one,” said King, 27. “It sounds really cliché, but we can worry about being upset later. In the meantime, we need to devote all our training, knowledge, and resources to solving this problem.”

For their quick response and lifesaving efforts, both deputies were named Employee of the Quarter by Worcester County Sheriff Matt Crisafulli.

“In my mind, that’s miraculous – she was getting ready to be declared dead, and they were able to get a pulse back,” Crisafulli said. “Had it been five or 10 minutes more, those extra minutes would have made the difference in a life-or-death situation. It doesn’t get any more heroic.”