MEDINA, N.Y. — ​“It's something I've always wanted to do. It's been a lifelong dream,” Medina Officer Jacob Reeves says of being a police officer.

For Reeves, police work, at its core, is all about serving people in the community.

“We do a lot of good. We help everybody,” he says.

And sometimes, that means saving someone's life.

“This call definitely hit home for me. My son was 9 months old at the time. Very close to the victim's age,” he explains.

This past June, Reeves was dispatched to a home in the village, where family members were frantic after finding a one and a half year old girl unconscious in a backyard swimming pool.

“When I got there she was absolutely not breathing. No response. I tried talking to her. Compressions. Backblows. Try to get some response from her but she was totally unresponsive,” he says.

Reeves took over CPR from a neighbor who had just been trained for it herself, which he says is a miracle. He continued until an ambulance arrived, and firefighters began to see positive signs in the young girl before taking her to the hospital.

Reeves found out a couple of hours later that she survived.

“Obviously, that was a great thing to go home to at the end of the night,” he says. And a few days later, he was surprised when someone flagged him down and told him she was home from the hospital. 

This is Officer Reeves, holding little Alisabeth, alive and doing well. He plans to keep in touch with Alisabeth and her family and hopes she'll remember him.  She'll have that chance because of what he and others did to save her. 

“Very emotional, obviously the best outcome that we could have. Sense of relief for sure, and everything we've trained for came together and worked like it should,” he says.

Officer Jacob Reeves is our 2020 American Red Cross Law Enforcement Real Hero.