Earlier this month, a child who suffered a seizure at just 15-months-old was reunited with the Summit Fire & EMS crew that helped stabilize him and rush him to the hospital during the medical emergency back in 2022.

Arizona resident Rachel Kohn, the mother of 2-year-old Theo, said that during a visit to her in-laws at Copper Village in August 2022, Theo was sick with a high fever, so the family was driving him to the hospital when his lips turned blue and eyes rolled back in his head.

“We didn’t know what it was at the time,” Kohn said. “It was super scary to witness when you don’t know what’s going on.”

When the seizures started, the family pulled over at the gas station outside of Copper Mountain and called 911, Kohn said. The Summit Fire & EMS station is just a short distance away, and paramedics were quick to arrive and get Theo into an ambulance, she said.

Firefighter Jake Butts and fire medics Craig Bifano and Ross Orton responded to the call within minutes that day and got Theo stabilized for the trip to the hospital, according to a Summit Fire & EMS Facebook post.

Theo went on to make a full recovery, Kohn said. Then, last week, Kohn happened to stop by the Summit Fire & EMS station near Copper Mountain during another visit to her in-laws. As she was recalling Theo’s rescue to some employees, Butts happened to overhear and popped out to join the conversation, she said.

“We literally went not knowing, not expecting anyone to be there,” Kohn said. “And Jake was there. He was like ‘I remember responding to an infant who was not breathing.’ It is a little bit memorable.”

Soon, Theo, who was there with his mother, was allowed to climb in the fire trucks and pretend to be a firefighter with the crew who rescued him, Kohn said. Theo “loves firetrucks, so that was really exciting for him,” she said.

The experience was also rewarding for the firefighters, who often respond to emergencies but don’t always hear follow-ups from those they’ve saved, Kohn noted. It was especially coincidental because it was Butts last week before transferring to the station in Dillon, she added.

After the seizures at Copper Mountain, Kohn said the family learned that Theo experienced febrile seizures, which the National Institutes of Health describes as convulsions that occur in young children, typically triggered by a fever.

Theo has experienced similar seizures since the experience near Copper Mountain but will eventually outgrow them, Kohn said. The quick response by Summit Fire & EMS, though, was important because if he went more than five minutes without oxygen, he could have suffered brain damage, she said.

“Luckily, (Summit Fire & EMS) was there so quickly,” Kohn said.