VIDEO: Emergency dispatchers are on the receiving end of the worst days of people’s lives. They rarely know what happens after that call ends, let alone get to meet them. In Aurora — a city of over 400,000 people — one call, one voice, and one grandmother’s love made all the difference. When 8-year-old Gloria collapsed, her grandmother didn’t panic; she acted.
Charisse Huggins immediately began CPR while on the phone with Aurora911. What unfolded over the next few minutes was nothing short of a miracle. “I started compressions right then and there,” said Charisse. “I didn’t think. I just did what I had to do.”
Gloria received her new heart just shy of her first birthday. That morning in January, she had no symptoms before collapsing. She simply sat up in bed and said, “Meemaw, my head hurts.” Moments later, she fell backward. Gloria’s cardiac arrest lasted nearly an hour. Against all odds, she survived. It’s a call Aurora 911 dispatcher Rosie Deichsel won’t forget.
“Charisse was calm, unbelievably calm,” Deichsel said about Huggins. “I like being on the other side of the phone, you know, that’s where I belong.” Charisse, who had cared for Gloria since birth, knew CPR from years of navigating her granddaughter’s complex medical needs. But even for her, the weight of the moment was overwhelming. “You’re never really prepared,” she admitted. “But there was a soft voice on the other end of the phone. Deichsel kept me grounded. She kept me going.”
