‘She actually passed away,’ but a metro-east mayor brought her back, parents say

Thanks to quick thinking and a calm head, Cahokia Heights Mayor Curtis McCall Sr. was able to revive a 7-year old girl and give her a new chance at life.

Jarnell Dukes and the child’s mother, Sharell Hall, are now calling McCall a hero for saving their daughter’s life.

Dukes said his daughter, Kennedi, has severe asthma – “it’s like she is allergic to the outside,” he says.

He didn’t know just how bad her attacks could get, though, until a recent Sunday, when he took Kennedi and her twin brother Kyree on a quick trip to the store to buy dog food.

“As we walked into the store she told me ‘daddy I really can’t breathe,’” he recalled. “ I sprinted back to the car, put her in and took off. I was going to go home, but her brother said she peed on herself.

“I knew she was in trouble.”

Initially, Dukes said he intended to take Kennedi home to get her nebulizer, but but she passed out.

“Her eyes rolled on the back of her head,” he said. “Her body clenched up. Everything locked up on her.”

Panicked, Duke said he rushed the girl to Cahokia Heights City Hall. He said he was prepared to go to jail if that’s what it took to get help. The father and son screamed for help and banged on the doors and windows, until one of them came down.

“I felt like if I busted the window out somebody was going to come,” he said.

That’s what got McCall’s attention. The mayor just happened to be at City Hall that Sunday to meet with some residents who had flooding issues. It was as he was as he was preparing to leave that he heard the cries for help.

“I have been retired from law enforcement for 20 years and I received CPR training over 25 years ago. I never had to use it until now,” McCall said. “I am thankful, no. 1, that I received this training and that it kicked back in after all these years.

“If I want to say anything I would ask citizens to please go get that CPR training because you just never know when you will need it. … Really and truly, you just never know.”

McCall said he laid Kennedi on the floor and saw that she wasn’t breathing. He started chest compressions in an effort to revive her.

He also worked to calm Dukes who, by his own admission “was going ballistic.”

“This was a small child – I didn’t want to compress too hard,” he said. “As you can imagine, it seemed like forever, but I would imagine it probably took about five minutes of just doing CPR that I started to see some signs that made me feel better.”

The first positive sign was that Kennedi began vomiting. With about two more minutes of compressions, McCall estimated, the girl began coughing.

“I felt she was coming around,” he said.

Cahokia Heights Police and EMS workers arrives to assist and rushed the girl to a hospital.

Dukes said he did not know at the time that the man who revived his “lifeless” daughter had been a trained police officer, much less the village’s mayor.

“She went beyond passing out. She actually passed away,” Dukes said through tears. “And, he brought her back.”

Kennedi spent three days in the intensive care unit of an area hospital, but was able to make it for her first day of school on Monday.

Hall, Kennedi’s mother, echoed Dukes in declaring McCall a hero.

“He revived her. She was not breathing. She was not talking. She was gone,” she said. “He’s a hero.”

Kennedi’s twin brother took his appreciation up an extra measure.

“He’s my super hero and I want to tell him thank you for saving my sister,” Kyree said.

Not so, McCall said, “I’m a public servant.”

“You can take away ‘hero’ and all that,” he said. “I believe God saved that training I received over 25 years ago for this time.”

This story was originally published August 25, 2024 at 6:30 AM.