It wasn’t until she gave birth that Mom realized she was pregnant. Then Her Daughter Was Saved by a Police Officer

For saving the life of a premature baby whose mother was unaware that she was pregnant, an Indianapolis police officer is receiving praise.

in video captured by a body camera. The video shows Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer Kelly Chappell rushing into a house and taking the baby from a woman who claimed not to know she was expecting. Chappell then quickly compresses the little girl’s chest.

The officer tells PEOPLE that she was so relieved to be able to get two gasps of air out of the infant.

She recalls thinking, “This baby is going to have a chance,” at that precise moment. “It’s really more of a miracle.”

Chappell, 47, a 19-year department veteran, claims that as soon as she stepped onto the scene, her instincts and training took over.

“I searched for a pulse but was unable to detect anything. “She had a bluish tint,” the officer says, and he started performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation right away by pressing on the baby’s chest with two fingers. In the body-cam footage, Chappell can also be seen putting her finger in the newborn’s mouth and extracting a tiny bit of a substance that appears to be sticky and that the baby may have swallowed during delivery.

She continued her lifesaving efforts for about eight minutes before handing the baby off to paramedics, who then took her to the hospital.

“You want to make everything possible for that parent,” says Chappell, who credits the mother for taking all the right steps after unexpectedly giving birth at home.

The woman was in the bathroom when the child was born at what was later determined to be 23 to 26 weeks of gestation and weighing about 2 lbs., Chappell tells PEOPLE. The mother cut the umbilical cord, wrapped the baby in a purple shirt and kept patting the newborn to try to get her breathing.