Sirens blare all around. I look over to see a Painters Mill fire truck next to Tomasetti’s Tahoe. Clutching the baby, I jog toward the firefighter as he disembarks. A tremor of fear moves through me when I glance down and see that the baby’s face is purple.

“She’s not breathing!” I scream. “I need a paramedic!”

Tossing his hat onto the ground, the firefighter sprints toward me, arms forward and reaching. “Is she choking? Is her airway clear?”

“I don’t know! She was beneath a piece of furniture.”

Gently, he takes the baby. His face tightens at the sight of her. Without speaking he moves her farther from the mobile home and drops to his knees. He lays the child on the ground and checks for a brachial pulse. He glances up, shakes his head at a second paramedic approaching. Then, using two middle fingers, he begins rapid chest compressions. “How long has she been quiet?” he asks me, without stopping.

“A minute,” I say. “Maybe two. At first she was crying and then…”

Thirty compressions, and he sets his hand beneath the infant’s neck, pinches her nostrils. Sealing a tiny rescue mask over the infant’s mouth, he gives two short breaths.

The second firefighter reaches us, a stretcher in one hand, an AED kit—a defibrillator—in the other. He drops to his knees beside the first responder, opens the kit, removes the pads. “I need her dry,” he says, yanking a paper sheet from the kit.

Quickly, he dries the child. The other paramedic tugs off the infant’s onesie. I see a tiny torso. Blue-tinged skin. Unmoving arms and legs. Vaguely, I’m aware of the woman screaming from somewhere nearby. Of sirens and the incessant blare of the tornado warning system. There are a hundred other things I should be doing; there’s a gas leak and downed power lines and undoubtedly more casualties. But I can’t move. I can’t look away from that baby and the two men working to save her life.

The second paramedic removes two electrode pads from the kit, placing one on the infant’s chest, the other on the baby’s back, sealing them tightly against the skin. All the while a mechanical voice from the AED intones instructions. “Analyzing rhythm. Stand clear. Shock advised.”

“Kate.”

Tomasetti’s voice reaches me as if through a fog. I feel his hand on my arm. I want to say something. Let him know I’m okay. I can handle this. I want to reassure the mother, take her hand and tell her the child is going to be all right. But I don’t know if any of that is true. Despite our efforts, I don’t know if the baby is going to make it.

Vaguely, I’m aware of my phone vibrating against my hip. Tomasetti pulling me away from the paramedics. “Let them work,” he tells me.

Finally, I look at him. Even in the midst of all this chaos, I realize, his worry is for me. Illogical anger burgeons in my chest. I want to rail, tell him this isn’t about me. My small world and petty emotions and discomforts don’t matter. The only thing that matters is a tiny heart that’s stopped and a young life that must not be lost.