(Aug. 14, 2023) Far be it for Navy Lt. j.g. Olivia Cook to wait until her initial Urgent Care Clinic shift to help another in need.

There’s a two-year old child especially thankful.

Cook, a Navy Nurse Corps officer, had just finished her first day check-in at her new command, Naval Hospital Bremerton, when she stopped on the way home to pick up some groceries.

It was selecting items for dinner at a Fred Meyer outlet when her shopping incursion went from procurement to providing pediatric emergency first aid.

“I was in the households’ items area when I heard someone yell, “help!” Then I heard “help” again and ran towards the voice, which was two aisles down,” related Cook, who saw a mother holding her toddler. The young girl was not breathing and was choking on something.

Cook promptly took the child from the distraught mother, placed her stomach down on her leg and delivered the recommended five quick blows on the child’s back with the heel of her hand.

“She began crying, spitting up and started breathing again,” related Cook, a Cranbury, New Jersey native with three years in the Navy. “I continued to just hold and comfort her for three or four minutes afterwards just to try and calm her down from the ordeal.”

The grateful mother and a handful of other shoppers who had also gathered at the scene expressed their appreciation at Cook’s quick thinking and quicker actions.

Cook credits her Nurse Corps background and cardiopulmonary resuscitation and basic life support training which directed her rapid response.

“To know CPR, just to have that training under my belt let me immediately know what to do,” said Cook. “What we deem to be simply steps are really life measures when push comes to shove.”

Cook’s has taught CPR and BLS when deployed on hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) for Pacific Partnership 2022 to local healthcare providers in the Philippines and Vietnam.

“I felt very lucky to be able to teach and share on CPR basics to others [during Pacific Partnership],” related Cook. “So thankful that I have this training and was able to use it when needed in a real-life scenario.”

After ensuring all was well and mother and child met up with the father, Cook took a moment to collect herself after finishing her grocery shopping. She then called home to talk to her mother.

“I’m not a mom but can only imagine how scary it must have felt for the mother to suddenly feel her child could not breath,” stated Cook. “Very emotional feelings. I think I also cried afterwards.”

The object the child choked on?

“Might have been pretzel bites,” guessed Cook.