Peoria girl who survived two aneurysms as a baby helps honor EMTs who saved her life

WEST PEORIA – William Kemper didn’t know he would be resuscitating a three-week-old baby when he hopped into the ambulance on the evening of June 6, 2018.

“When the call first came out, it was kind of staticky, and we thought they said it was a 30-year-old in cardiac arrest," said Kemper, an EMT and firefighter who works full time for the Germantown Hills Fire Department and volunteers in West Peoria, where he lives. “When we were en route, it came back across the radio and said ‘three-week old’ — big difference. I looked at everybody in the truck and said, ‘Nobody get out of the truck. I’m just going to jump out and grab the kid and we’re gonna go.’”

Kemper knew that time was of the essence.

“Ultimately the best care for a child, or anyone in cardiac arrest, is getting them to definitive care, getting them to the hospital because they can do a lot more for them in the hospital than we can out in the field,” he said.

Kemper took tiny Harleigh from her mother, Ashleigh Berry, who had rushed out of the family’s West Peoria home to meet the rescue squad. Only minutes before, Harleigh had flung out her arms and stopped breathing while cradled in her mother’s arms.

Ashleigh had been doing chest compressions, and the moment Harleigh was in Kemper's arms he continued by pressing a thumb on each side of her chest while supporting her tiny back with his fingers. In the ambulance, another member of the crew performed rescue breathing. Harleigh gasped and started breathing just as the crew pulled into OSF Saint Francis Medical Center.

More: Historic surgery takes place in Peoria after infant suffers two aneurysms

Soon after Kemper handed the baby to hospital personnel, her mother arrived.

“I gave her an update on what was going on. She grabbed me and gave me a big hug, which is about the time I started crying,” said Kemper.

Ashleigh and Patrick Berry would later learn that their child, who had been perfectly healthy before the attack, had suffered two aneurysms.

A harrowing surgery and a brilliant recovery

Kemper and his colleagues were the first in the line of heroes who saved Harleigh Berry’s life. Not only did EMTs provide lifesaving care, they also got her to the hospital in record time.

“It was actually one of the fastest calls West Peoria has ever ran. From the time the call was toned out to the time we got to the hospital was six minutes,” said Kemper.

Also on that list of heroes is neurosurgeon Dr. Jeffrey Klopfenstein who, two days later, performed an extraordinarily delicate surgery to repair the damage in Harleigh’s brain. It became clear the surgery was a success after Harleigh woke up and started using the left side of her body, which could have been paralyzed.

Though the journey has not been without bumps, Harleigh has made a brilliant recovery. Now 5 years old and in kindergarten, the only sign of the trauma she suffered is some difficulty with fine motor skills and a hand that occasionally curls awkwardly.

Honoring a few heroes

The fact that Harleigh is a spitfire is not immediately evident because she's also quite shy. It takes a while for her to warm up to strangers — she watches them while hiding behind whatever is convenient. On Dec. 6 she hid behind a plaque Ashleigh and Patrick formally presented to the West Peoria Fire Department to thank them for saving their daughter’s life.

The plaque displays the Journal Star article published after Harleigh was released from St. Francis in July 2018. For the last five years it has hung in the Illinois Neurological Institute, and Harleigh was photographed in front of it after each of her yearly checkups. This year Dr. Klopfenstein gifted the plaque to Ashleigh Berry, but because it made her cry every time she read it, she didn’t want to hang it in the family home.

“I have a whole box of the newspapers. I don’t need it on the wall,” said Ashleigh Berry.

She decided it was only fitting that the article be hung in the West Peoria fire station, to honor the heroes who helped save Harleigh’s life.

“It really does take a special person who doesn’t get paid to go out and save someone. It was really neat to be able to thank them,” Ashleigh Berry said.

For Kemper, the plaque is a reminder of an event he often recounts while training others.

"I use the experience from that call and a few others we’ve had since to explain the importance of CPR, the importance of realizing when it’s needed," he said. “There are chances to get patients back. We don’t get them all back, but we do make a difference when we do. There have been calls since Harleigh that myself and some other people have been on where we’ve done CPR. We’ve gotten the patients back. They’ve walked into the hospital. And it’s a huge sigh of relief, knowing that what we do actually makes a difference.”

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Leslie Renken can be reached at (309) 370-5087 or lrenken@pjstar.com. Follow her on Facebook.com/leslie.renken.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Harleigh Berry and family honor West Peoria EMTs who saved her life