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Vanessa Senquis of Bayonne was taking her 4-year-old daughter Leilani to Hackensack University Medical Center after she’d fallen down some steps and cut her forehead.
The unconscious child was in serious peril during the medical episode as her terrified mother shouted to a 911 dispatcher: “I need help! I need help!”
Seemingly out of nowhere, Hasbrouck Heights Fire Chief Michael Greco was next to her in his chief’s truck. Spotting him, Senquis swerved her SUV toward him, then pulled over.
Greco got the message.
He parked behind the Honda Pilot, hit the lights and was quickly joined by Hasbrouck Heights Fire Official Robert Knobloch.
Both men were returning separately from a training session that Dec. 6 day.
“God put them in my path,” Senquis said.
Greco opened the back door of her SUV and instantly realized time wasn’t on anyone’s side.
Little Leilani “did not look well,” he said.
Fortunately, Senquis couldn’t have asked for a more experienced pair of saviors.
Knobloch, a 26-year Hasbrouck Heights Fire Department veteran, is also a captain with Saddle Brook’s Hook & Ladder Co. 1. Greco, a 21-year Heights veteran, has also been fighting fires out of Hackensack the past 14 years. He’d also been an EMT in Jersey City.
After rendering aid, the veteran responders radioed for medical help.
“But where we were, [it] was extremely difficult to get it there,” Greco said, “so we decided to get her going.”
Knobloch zoomed ahead to clear the route. The three-vehicle convoy exited at Exit 16 in Secaucus, got onto westbound Route 3 and headed up Route 17 toward HUMC.
Waiting pediatric ER staff took it from there.
The heroes were reunited with Vanessa, Leilani and her little brother at the Heights firehouse on Friday (Dec. 15).
Senquis called the veteran lifesavers a blessing.
“They’re my angels,” she said. “If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have my daughter.”
Greco called it “right place, right time,” combined with “sheer luck and maybe a higher power."
“We’re the fire department,” the father of three said. “Anybody that needs help of any kind, we’re going to stop and help.”
Senquis said she hopes that God blesses him, Knobloch and their families “with everything and more.”
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