A year after Dr. Andrea Sansonnet saved 1-year-old Maddox, Newnan police honored her, and the boy she rescued is a healthy, happy 2-year-old.
Dr. Andrea Sansonnet was enjoying a picnic with her family on a hot July day in Newnan, Georgia, when she heard a mother screaming by the pool.
Seconds earlier, 1-year-old Maddox had been playing happily in the shallow end. Surveillance video shows that in about 90 seconds he went from splashing in waist-high water to floating motionless. His mother, Janay Shaw, ran in and pulled him out.
Sansonnet didn’t hesitate. She handed her own toddler daughter to her husband and rushed over. Maddox had no pulse, wasn’t breathing and his lips had turned blue. She laid him down and started CPR right away. Another woman also helped during the emergency, and officials are still hoping to identify her.
Today, Maddox is thriving. He just turned 2, and his birthday happens to be the same day as Sansonnet’s, the woman who gave him a second chance.
Newnan police recently honored Sansonnet at a community awards ceremony for her quick thinking. She trained as a doctor in her native Venezuela and isn’t practicing medicine in the U.S. for now while she raises her young daughter. Her training was still there when it mattered most.
Shaw says she’s grateful every single day, even when her energetic little boy is testing her patience.
“I just thank God that she was there,” she said.
At the ceremony, a speaker noted that rescues involving children hit a community especially hard, because kids are its future. Thanks to one doctor on her day off, Newnan still has Maddox.
