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12-Year-Old Performs CPR, Save Mother’s Life

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Mar 23, 2013 03:25 PM EDT

12-year-old C.J. Saulsgiver was a normal boy living in Ogden, UT going about his daily activities when one event changed his life and turned him into a hero. C.J. was thrown into a life or death situation and instead of cracking under pressure, C.J. successfully performed CPR on his mother and saved her life.

C.J. recalls being in his basement, hanging out with his friend before hearing a loud thump. When he reached upstairs, he saw his mother lying on the floor and immediately called 911.

"She was grape purple and she kept opening her mouth," C.J. remembered.

Christine Saulsgivier, 55-years-old, was cleaning the house before she collapsed. When C.J. called 911, the dispatcher stated that he would need to perform CPR and that the dispatcher would walk him through the steps one by one. But, fortunately for Christine, her son already knew how to perform the procedure that would save her life.

C.J. and his friend rolled his mother onto her back and C.J. started to do chest compressions and breathing.

"I put the phone on speaker and set it down on the floor while I did CPR on my mom. I did four compressions and a breath, and she started to breathe. Then I waited a second, and she stopped breathing, so I did it again and she started to breathe again."

C.J. learned how to do the procedure when his parents, Christine and Doc, were getting certified CPR training after they decided to take in a foster child three months earlier. Luckily for all of them, C.J. got certified as well.

Christine had suffered from a global heart attack, and if it were not for C.J., she probably would not have survived. The Fire Chief, Jason Poulsen rewarded C.J. with a Roy firefighter badge, t-shirt, and a plaque for demonstrating such heroic efforts.

C.J. is now the hero of his neighborhood. 

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