2018 NJSPBA Valor Awards
Never off duty
Sean O’Hare knows from his 22 years of
service with Morris Township Local 133 that
officers should expect the unexpected when
on the job. But on Aug. 13, 2017, the Local
133 member confirmed that the same is true
for officers taking time off or, in his case, tak-
ing a vacation in Clearwater Beach, Florida.
O’Hare was relaxing at a crowded hotel
pool when suddenly he heard a commotion
by the deep end and an individual yelling,
“Someone help him!”
Just as O’Hare jumped up to look in the
direction of the panicked crowd gathering,
he saw a young child being lifted from the
water. The boy’s skin was blue, and he ap-
peared to be lifeless.
“He wasn’t breathing at all,” O’Hare
shared. “I ran over and immediately started
performing CPR.”
Families shielded children’s eyes and
yelled in panic as O’Hare continued to per-
form rescue breathing for a long four or five
minutes on the limp body of the 2-year-old
boy. In the beginning, even O’Hare ques-
tioned if the child would breathe again, but
after a few compressions, the boy started to
expel water from his mouth and nose. Slow-
ly the child’s color began to come back, and
he started to groan and make noises.
“You felt like you still had a chance,”
O’Hare said. “But you still feared about
medical complications that could come
down the road.”
When the ambulance arrived on the
scene minutes later, the child had begun to
cry and was rushed to the hospital.
That night, O’Hare received a call from
the mother at the hotel. She was relieved
to tell him that her son was doing well and
would be released from the hospital the next
day.
“She was just very appreciative and very
emotional,” O’Hare remembered. “She was
worried that people would think she was a
bad mother because her kid got out of her
sight for a split second. She was very appre-
ciative and thanked us.”
Months later, the mother followed up
with the hero who saved her child’s life and
shared that the young boy was now enrolled
in swimming lessons.
For the remainder of O’Hare’s vacation,
reporters and news networks were stationed
outside his hotel to report the good news of
Lifesaving Award
Sergeant Sean O’Hare
Morris Township Local 133
a near-tragedy that was averted, thanks to
the swift actions of a New Jersey officer. On
Nov. 17, O’Hare was given the Lifesaving
Award for an incident that defines the call to
action that law enforcement officers face on
and off the job.
“Everybody that did a heroic thing here
tonight just went to work that day and
thought it was going to be a normal day,”
O’Hare explained. “Or, like me, I was on va-
cation and thought I was going to be away
from work. But when something happens,
you’ve got to be able to step up and rely on
your training and act in the moment.”
www.njcopsmagazine.com
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