Motorist's spur-of-the-moment decision saves boy's life

• Friend texted Dr. Amir Yazdan asking him to send photo of new car
• Marjie Britz was nearby with son, who had stopped breathing
• Yazdan performed CPR until boy arrived at emergency room

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Call it a Christmas miracle. Or call it sheer luck.

Either way, an 11-year-old from Powdersville, S.C., is alive and well today after a California doctor stopped to take a picture of his new car on New Year's Eve and ended up saving a life.

Dr. Amir Yazdan and his girlfriend were hoping for a little adventure when they flew across the country early New Year's Eve to pick up a new car in North Carolina.

"We caught the red eye, got the car and started driving it back," said Yazdan, a 32-year-old physician from Orange County, Calif.

The white, 2012 Porsche Turbo "was a combined Christmas, New Year's gift to myself," he said. "I thought the trip would be fun."

And it was. Until Yazdan and his girlfriend decided on a whim to pull off Interstate 85 for gas in Piedmont. After filling the gas tank, Yazdan was in the car and heading for the road again. A text from a friend asked him to send a photo of his new car.

"I got out, snapped a couple of photos real quick and was about to get back into my car when I heard a woman screaming, 'Help me. Help me. Someone help me. My baby can't breathe.' "

Yazdan said he looked up and saw a woman standing in the middle of the road with the back door of her car open. He ran into the busy street and as he approached the mom — Marjie Britz — told Yazdan her son had asthma and had stopped breathing.

"He was blue," Yazdan said. " From his condition, it looked like he hadn't been breathing for at least 60 seconds."

As he frantically began performing CPR on the boy, Yazdan said one thought kept going through his head: "Don't let this kid die."

"It was pretty bad. His mom had an albuterol inhaler, and she was spraying it down his heart. I really think that might have gotten his heart going again."

As Yazdan continued CPR, a crowd gathered and about 15 cars were parked around the scene.

"People were frantic," he said. "I worked on him for about eight or 10 minutes before the ambulance arrived. Then I continued to work on him in the ambulance."

Britz said she has no doubt Yazdan saved her son's life.

Britz, a Clemson University professor, said she'd been at home with her son, Teigue Winge, when he began having trouble breathing. Her son — she calls him Tiger — has asthma that is usually controlled with a nebulizer and an emergency inhaler.

She tried both on her son and still he was gasping for breath. She knew what to do next.

"We're no strangers to emergency rooms," she said.

As she spoke to a 911 operator and drove toward I-85 in Piedmont, Tiger was screaming.

"I'm dying," she said he yelled from the backseat. "I can't breathe."

Britz said she kept driving toward Greenville Memorial Hospital's emergency room. But then her son went silent, she said.

She stopped in the middle of the road, across from a Shell gas station. She began rescue breathing on her son.

"I couldn't get any air into him. I know CPR, but when you're doing it to your own son, I don't know," she said as her voice trailed off.

"I would breathe into him, and it came right back out cold as ice."

She said she began screaming for help. And that's when Yazdan came running toward her.

"We had to be right there, with an ER doc at that moment, or he would have died," she said. "His eyes were fixed and pale."

Yazdan works in an urgent care clinic in California, and he said he's done CPR "a thousand times." But this time it was different.

"I've seen people die, but this, I don't know," he said. "I just kept saying, 'Don't let this kid die.' "

When an ambulance arrived, Yazdan insisted on continuing to perform CPR and ride in the ambulance to the ER.

At the ER, he handed off responsibility to someone else and paused to think, he said.

What he thought about was the unusual circumstances that led him to pull off at that exit when there was no need to, to do it at that time, and to get a text asking for photos of his car, he said.

"All I thought was, this happened for a reason," he said. "If I hadn't been there, this kid probably would have died.

"But everyone was so great. There were probably 15 people there trying to help. One guy directed the ambulance. Another guy, a prosecutor, flashed his badge and drove my girlfriend to the ER."

Britz said it was a team effort, too, led by Yazdan. "Everyone at that gas station was praying. The ER was great. When he woke up, he started talking about sea turtles. I thought, he's back. That's Tiger.

"When he came out of intensive care, he was perfectly fine," she said.

Yet even though Tiger is safe and sound, Britz said when he returns to school Monday morning she will have trouble letting go.

"I'm fine," she said, and then laughed. "I can't sleep nights. All I can remember is how cold he was."

Yazdan left the ER after about an hour after they arrived. He got in his new car with his girlfriend and began driving. Near Atlanta, he had to pull over.

"I had to stop," he said. "My mind was racing. I kept thinking, if my phone hadn't gone off, I wouldn't have stopped and gotten out of the car."

Britz said she's spoken to Yazdan several times since then, trying to express her thanks. She said she's trying to think of an appropriate gift to try to show how grateful they are to him.

"What do you give a person who has given back your whole world?" she said. "It's just a Christmas miracle, delayed."