Aug. 22, 2016, is the day Andrea Shipp and Jennifer Goerlitz thought their little girl would not live another day.
"Nobody knew what the outcome was going to be," Goerlitz said. "I think Andrea and I have lived in this denial stage for a while."
If it hadn't been for the rapid response of Longmont firefighters and paramedics, Clara's mothers don't think their daughter — who has been diagnosed with congenital myopathy, chronic respiratory insufficiency and gastroparesis, or stomach paralysis — would have survived a cardiac arrest. In the last two years, the Longmont Fire Department has restructured the way they respond to out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, hoping with each call to revive the breaths and pulses of all patients before reaching the hospital.