Leaning on faith, a family transforms tragic loss into mission to save lives
When Bethany Bremer saw her 8-month-old daughter Audrey begin to choke, she turned to the only technique she thought was an option: the back slap. She turned the baby face down, let her head drop below her bottom and firmly hit the child on the back to dislodge the blockage.
Her husband, Steve, tried as well. When that did not work, he dialed 911, as Bethany went outside and yelled, “Is anyone a doctor?”
“People began filtering out of their homes,” Bethany recalled. A neighbor began administering CPR, an ambulance showed up and Bethany implored God to please not take her only daughter.
“I was just praying,” she said. “There was nothing else I could do. Just pray.”
She texted her friends, pleading, “Please get on your knees and pray for her.”
Steve and Bethany drove from their home near Memorial Park to meet the ambulance at the hospital. When they arrived, Audrey lay lifeless on the stretcher.
The couple again turned to prayer. “Breathe life,” they repeated over and over.
One minute later, Audrey’s pulse strengthened. She was placed on a Life Flight to the Texas Medical Center.
“There was an overwhelming blast of air from the propellers,” Bethany recalled.
After that, she felt sick with worry. When she and Steve found Audrey again at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, they had to wait outside her room. Shortly thereafter, three men from their Bible study appeared.
“How did you find us?” Bethany asked. “We barely made it here ourselves.”
“We got your text and asked God to guide us where we needed to go,” they replied.
Audrey’s hospital stay is full of small miracles — even as her condition worsened. The Bremers were comforted by constant prayers from visitors from their church, strangers who showed immeasurable kindness and the dedicated care of the hospital staff.
Eventually, the Bremers learned that Audrey’s prolonged lack of oxygen had caused significant brain damage.
Bethany had a heart-to-heart with God. She remembered that her initial anger turned into resolve to follow His will, no matter the outcome.
“I told God that I was not ready for Him to take her, but I would trust Him if He did,” she said. “The next steps felt guided by Him.”
Bethany thought of Psalms, “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior.”
“Now I believe that her testimony is the arrow,” she said. “My prayer was that God would make me a vessel.”
Audrey took her last breath on Feb. 12, 2019. At the funeral, Bethany felt compelled to describe how she felt that God had carried her.
It’s a story she has continued to share ever since — one that has become a spark in a completely unexpected way.
CPR and safety for parents and guardians
Gail Gould, a Spring Valley resident, is known as the “CPR and Safety Lady.” She has more than three decades under her belt teaching CPR and safety training for emergency situations.
She was teaching a course at a church when she heard about Bethany’s story. Before long, the two connected.
“Here I was on the phone with a total stranger, and I was crying,” Gould recalled. “She was crying. It had all happened only a year ago at this point.”
It was February 2020, a month before the pandemic canceled much of Gould’s work. She quickly moved her training online — and because she was so moved by Bethany’s experience, created a new class, “How to Help Your Choking Child.”
The mini-course, available at cprandsafetylady.com, can be completed in less than an hour — and is designed to empower parents, grandparents and caregivers.
“It was absolutely a labor of love,” Gould said of the course, which launched in December 2020. “It set me off on a whole new course — and Bethany’s story renewed my sense of purpose.”
She explained that the main cause of unintentional death of infants who are less than a year old is the obstruction of their airways due to choking.
One child dies every five days in the U.S., and 12,000 go to the ER each year, all from choking on food, she added.
“My mission is that no parent will ever have to lose a child to choking again — and to train CPR to everyone possible,” Gould said. “You never know when you are going to need to use it.”
Reaching out for the light
One day, Bethany reached out to Gould with good news. She was pregnant with another girl. And she wanted to take the digital choking course and sign up for CPR certification.
To have her inspiration take the course was meaningful for Gould, who asked if Bethany would share her personal experience on Instagram Live in December 2021. Gould provided a CPR demo as well.
“Bethany is so brave, so courageous,” Gould said.
In addition to showing parents and guardians how to remove blockage from a child’s airways, Gould also shares tips for choking prevention. Common kid foods — like hot dogs, popcorn and whole grapes — are riskiest, she said.
“Everyone should know how to do CPR,” Gould said. “But it’s best to never need CPR. Prevention is absolutely the key — so that this never even happens in the first place.”
Bethany said that Gould’s courses have been helpful to her. Before the session, she did not know that CPR could be performed on infants.
“Gail told me that yes, you can,” Bethany explained.
She celebrated her new daughter’s birth on April 26, 2021 and named her Adrienne Elijah.
The name means “out of darkness comes life,” Bethany explained.
The Bremers also have two sons, Hurston, 7, and Seth, 5. They currently live in Cottage Grove.
Bethany wants other parents to know that the unexpected can happen in life and create a whirlwind.
“Be able to trust God,” she said. “Let Him walk you through it. Even when there is darkness, the light is there. All we have to do is reach out.”