Idaho paramedic walks all over Idaho to raise awareness about SIDS

BOISE (KIVI) — Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS is the unexpected death of a baby less than one-year-old. It often happens during sleep in the baby’s crib or bassinet.

One Idaho paramedic has experienced this horrible situation first hand through responding to emergency calls. Now he wants to do something about it.

To spread the word about helping save parents from experiencing SIDS, Ada County Paramedics Battalion Chief Bart Buckendorf will be walking all over Idaho covering more than 600 miles. Buckendorf will walk from Pocatello through Boise and up to Coeur d’Alene during September and October. He will be stopping in a number of cities along the route to teach classes on ABCs of safe sleep.

“I am concerned about how far I can walk and I’ll just keep taking those steps and I’ll think about the pain of a parent losing their child to keep me going,” he said.

During his career as a paramedic and an EMT, he’s responded to many of these calls and he’s seen similarities. He says he wanted to do something different to bring awareness.

“To hear the mother’s cry and really it’s a wail. It is something you don’t forget, is how much pain the mother and the family is feeling when they lost that baby. It’s really a parent’s worst nightmare and hopefully if everybody knew about this to put that baby alone on their back in the crib we can make a huge change in infant deaths.”

Buckendorf is encouraging parents to take a class called “The ABC’s of safe sleep.” The class teaches about how the baby should be in the parent’s bedroom with them, but they should not sleep in an adult bed, couch, or a rock and play. The baby should be in a crib on its back.

To learn more about the class click here.

To help support Buckendorf, a GoFundMe page has been set up.