Oswego Man Comes to Aid of Boy at Fox Valley Mall

With not much time to spare before his next class, Chris Nevin of Oswego ran into the Fox Valley Mall at about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

He would come out a changed man.

That’s because the 2005 graduate might have helped save a life while walking through the mall on his way to just one store to pick up just one item.

“I was just walking along and all of a sudden I came up to this group of people surrounding this little boy, and people were saying he wasn’t breathing,” Nevin said. “He was so blue.”

That’s when Nevin, who is in his fifth week of Emergency Medical Technician training at Waubonsee Community College, sprung into action near the fountain on the mall’s first level.

Nevin said he was told the boy had suffered a seizure. Family members already were trying to give him oxygen through a breathing mask with a hand pump.

“I felt for a pulse and it was very weak, so I knew I had to do CPR,” Nevin said. “I just kind of pushed his family to the side and got on top of him and started giving him chest compressions.”

Nevin estimates he gave the boy about 70 chest pumps while the boy’s brother supplied oxygen with the mask after 30 compressions.

“All I remember next is the mother saying ‘Oh my God he’s not blue anymore,'” Nevin said.  “A couple minutes later the paramedics arrived and took him away. An Aurora police officer shook my hand and said ‘You did an incredible thing. You should feel really proud of yourself.’”

Aurora Fire Department Deputy Chief John Lehman couldn’t confirm the account of the boy’s rescue, as paramedics arrived on scene shortly after Nevin’s administered CPR.

However, Lehman did say that the boy was breathing, but unconscious when paramedics arrived. Due to privacy laws, Lehman said he couldn’t say much more about the boy or what may have caused the seizure in the first place.

Meanwhile, Nevin said he hopes one day to become a full-time firefighter/paramedic and has volunteered for the past year with the . He said since the incident occurred, he’s had trouble forgetting it.

“I went to class that night and tried to listen and take notes, but I just could not focus,” he said.

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