A Colorado man who saved a 1-year-old boy struggling to breathe on the side of a busy highway is hesitant to accept the “hero” title, insisting at a reunion with the child’s family on Monday that he is just a Good Samaritan who was trying to help.
“He’s our guardian angel,” Vanessa Navarrete, the boy’s mother, told KDVR, of Jon Province.
“It’s like we are going to keep him in our family – no matter if he likes it or not, he’s going to be there,” she said.
On Friday, Province saw the family on the side of the road after Navarrete saw her son, Justin Jr., turning blue.
“I’m holding my baby and his mouth was so blue to where I didn’t know what to do at this point,” Navarrete told KDVR.
Province, who was on his way to work, saw the scene and pulled over to the side of the road. He immediately started CPR after learning it while in college.
“I was doing thirty compressions per breath,” he told KDVR. “He had a couple breaths here and there and then he’d stop breathing again. I just said ‘C’mon, give me a cry, give me a cry. Let me hear you.’”
The boy started breathing and paramedics arrived to transport him to a local hospital, where hours later Province showed up with toys.
“I don’t think I’m a hero,” he told the news outlet. “I’m just a good Samaritan just trying to do what I can to help others.”
