Parents grateful for calm dispatcher

A toddler's mother and father express their thanks to the man who saved their daughter from drowning.

By TAMARA LUSH

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 15, 2000

NEW PORT RICHEY -- "I need to do CPR. My daughter was in the pool . . . she's purple!"

And so began the six-minute 911 call from a frantic mother, a call that would save the life of a toddler because of the efforts of a cool-headed dispatcher.

[Times photo: Dan McDuffie] Pasco 911 dispatcher Bill van de Plas holds Brooke Jamet, whose life he saved.

The call came to the emergency dispatch center at 7 p.m. Sunday. It was the first call Billy van de Plas answered on his first shift back from vacation.

On the other end was a New Port Richey woman called, her voice primal with fear. Carol Ann and Alain Jamet had just found their 22-month-old daughter, Brooke, in the pool. Underwater.

"Is she breathing?" van de Plas asked.

"No," replied Carol Ann Jamet.

Van de Plas talked Carol Anne Jamet through cardiopulmonary resuscitation. In turn, she shouted the instructions to her husband, who was leaning over Brooke on the kitchen floor. Within seconds, water gushed out of the child's mouth.

"Please hurry, please hurry, please hurry," Carol Ann Jamet said into the phone. Brooke began breathing. They were heavy, labored breaths, and as her parents sobbed, an ambulance arrived.

Brooke was flown to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, and was released that night. Because she was underwater only for two minutes or less, she recovered fully.

But there was some unfinished business. The Jamets wanted to thank van de Plas, the man who who helped them save their little girl.

On Friday night, the family went to the dispatch center with a box of candy, a card and a framed photo of Brooke.

"Thank you so much," said Carol Ann Jamet as she embraced van de Plas. "You were so calm."

Shaking, van de Plas handed Brooke a brown, fuzzy teddy bear. Brooke looked up at van de Plas with giant blue eyes. He told the Jamets that his niece has the same name as their daughter -- Brooke Ashley.

"When I get calls about kids, the first thing I think of are my kids," he said to the Jamets. "It makes me do a better job."

The Jamets and van de Plas began talking about his children, and asked when his 22-month-old toddler's birthday was. Sept. 28, he replied.

The same day as Brooke's.

"It was meant to be," van de Plas said.

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