[chris]

A Barnstable, Massachusetts, police dispatcher talked a father through reviving his infant son after the baby stopped breathing on Christmas Day 2013, according to police and news accounts.

The 9-week-old boy began vomiting and then choking while eating at his family's Cape Cod home, authorities said. A family friend, Melanie Campbell, called 911 and told the dispatcher, "I have a nine week-old infant and he just stopped breathing. He's like bright blue in the face."

Dispatcher Dennis Stampfl instructed Campbell to lay the infant face down along his father's forearm and strike his back five times between the shoulder blades, police said. Campbell relayed each instruction over the phone to the baby's father, Jonathan Brooks, as Stampfl stayed on the line.

After two rounds of back blows, the boy began crying and his color returned to normal, according to police. Emergency medical crews reached the home within a minute and took the infant to Cape Cod Hospital, where he was treated for acid reflux syndrome and released.

The baby's mother, Samantha D'Elia, later described the moment she thought her son was gone. "I thought he was dead and there was no changing it, but I wasn't going to stop," she said.

Stampfl, a Barnstable police officer who was working as a 911 dispatcher that day, called the outcome "truly a Christmas miracle." News coverage of the rescue did not report a formal commendation for Stampfl, though it credited his calm, step by step instructions with helping the father stay focused during the emergency.