Posted on 12/30/2010 1:36:26 AM PST by Huntress
A blizzard baby delivered inside the lobby of a snowbound Brooklyn building died after an emergency call of a woman in labor brought no help for nine excruciating hours.
The baby's mother, a 22-year-old college senior, was recovering Tuesday night at Interfaith Medical Center, where her newborn was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m. on Monday. That was 10 hours after the first 911 call from the bloody vestibule on Brooklyn Ave. in Crown Heights.
"No one could get to her. Crown Heights was not plowed, and no medical aid came for hours," said the student's mother.
By the time a horde of firefighters and cops finally trooped to her aid through snow-covered blocks, the baby was unconscious and unresponsive, sources said.
Details of the tragedy emerged as the abominable snowstorm continued to wreak havoc across a city still digging out from the wintry blast. Some of the other blizzard horrors include:
- In Queens, a woman tried to reach 911 operators for 20 minutes Monday and then waited for three hours for first responders to arrive. By then, her mom had died, state Sen. Jose Peralta's office said.
Laura Freeman, 41, said her mother, Yvonne Freeman, 75, woke her at 8 a.m. because she was having trouble breathing. When the daughter couldn't get through to 911, she enlisted neighbors and relatives, who also began calling.
One of the callers reached an operator at 8:20 a.m., but responders stymied by snow-clogged streets didn't reach the Corona home until 11:05 a.m., said Peralta, who wants the death investigated.
"The EMS workers walked down the block trudging through snow," Freeman said. "They tried. I could tell by the look on their faces. I really would just like [Mayor] Bloomberg to admit that there were casualties."
- A woman in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, was forced to spend the night with her dead father after the medical examiner's office took more than 24 hours to claim his body. Ismael Vazquez died at 10:31 a.m. on Monday, and the 82-year-old man's body remained in his bed until 1 p.m. yesterday. His daughter kept vigil in the living room.
"This is New York City, and I'm a New Yorker, and this is not the first storm we've ever had," said Florence Simancas, 51, holding back tears. "Somebody dropped the ball ... big-time."
- A Brooklyn woman was left sobbing at a Bay Ridge bus stop yesterday when the driver said there was no way to get her to a doctor's appointment in Bensonhurst.
"Please help. I have a doctor's appointment that is important and I can't get nowhere," 64-year-old Ludmila Kowalow said. "I don't know what to do," she added, throwing her hands in the air.
A 76-year-old Bay Ridge heart attack victim nearly died when an FDNY ambulance became stuck in a snowbank, but he was rescued by a gang of good Samaritans lugging him through the unplowed streets on a sled fashioned from a gurney.
"My husband could be dead right now," said Lucy Pastore, whose husband, Salvatore, was in stable condition at Lutheran Medical Center. "The mayor acts like this is a minor inconvenience. Makes me sick."
Still, nothing approached the tragedy of the newborn on the busiest day for 911 calls since Sept. 11, 2001.
The pregnant woman was walking from her home to the nearby hospital in the still-swirling snow when she ducked into the building lobby, unable to make it any farther.
The young woman had not told her family she was pregnant - she didn't want to disappoint relatives - or that she and her college boyfriend had decided to put the child up for adoption.
An 8:30 a.m. 911 call was made, with the caller saying the birth wasn't imminent, a Fire Department source told the Daily News. The call received a low priority, and the city unsuccessfully tried twice to contact the caller during the next few hours, the source said. A second, more urgent 911 call at 4:30 p.m. reported the woman was bleeding and the baby was crowning - and the call was upgraded to level two, the source said.
An hour later, the NYPD contacted the FDNY/EMS to report the baby had been delivered but was unconscious. Cops cut the umbilical cord and tried to revive the newborn, police source said.
The call was then upgraded to level one - highest priority - and an FDNY crew arrived in 12 minutes, sources said. EMTs were on the scene at 6 p.m.
"The mayor was spouting nonsense to say Crown Heights was plowed. It wasn't," the woman's mother said. "No one could get to her ... any other day she would have gotten to a hospital."
The city medical examiner will do an autopsy today on the baby.
>> The pregnant woman was walking from her home to the nearby hospital ...
>> The young woman had not told her family she was pregnant ...
Because babies are “burdens”. Right, Zero?
I feel for this young woman. Very sad.
Up here in the land of ice and snow, Toronto and Montreal have the finest snow removal systems in the world, bar none.....and sometimes it takes weeks to get back to normal after an historic dump.
I feel for you....but I just can't reach you.
At least the parasites can't blame Bush for this natural disaster.
...Although, like with Katrina, Bush might be happy to sit back and accept the blame, then hand out $2,000 debit cards to anybody who claims to have been in New York City when "the government" failed to come through two feet of snow blizzard to save them.
Ah well.. From some of the quotes in this article I gather lawsuits are being discussed wherein aggrieved parties will sue, the city will "settle" and fork over millions of taxpayer dollars, the corrupt jackpot justice lawyers will smile and wink at their city accomplices, and donations will be forwarded to city politicians' campaign coffers. And the world will keep on turning.
Yeah, but NY city is a low transfat, non smoking, low food salt city per Rabbi Bloomberg et al. So there!
/s
These are the same arse wipes that are going to get “free” health care from Obama.
The mayor is a blowhard putz. His head is up his arse.
Well said. People, especially city people, have been conditioned to sit back and relax when adversity strikes, and let somebody else do the heavy lifting for them.
I was living in Boston in February 1978 when not one, but two 20+ inch blizzards hit within a three week time span. Naturally snow plows couldn't come around for a while as they were too busy trying to clear the main arteries. But the neighbors on the side streets all got together and have "shoveling" parties. Within a couple of days, most of the side streets were cleared, not by snow plows but by people with shovels.
Occasionally I drive by my old neighborhood (near East Boston) and other than the triple deckers and narrow streets, nothing is the same. I grew up in a close-knit Italian, Catholic community and those people were proud, hard workers who knew how to take care of themselves and not rely on government. Despite the yards being about the size of my living room today, people found a way to grow their own vegetables. They even had tomato plants growing in their windowsills and were likely to have homemade wine and tomato sauce on hand.
The immigrants that live in that neighborhood today, they don't even speak English or care to try. The majority of them collect welfare and use food stamps down at the supermarket. The streets are littered with trash. The yards that once held cultivated gardens are now full of weeds and debris. And I guarantee if I drove down there this morning, half the cars on the street haven't even been cleared of snow yet. People are just sitting there waiting for somebody else to do something.
Global cooling is Bushes fault.
Sean Penn should be arriving soon with a snow shovel.
(I need a picture of “looter guy” in the snow, running with his beer. Someone, help me.)
More details would help.
I agree with your assessment about helplessness.
According to the article the baby had the cord wrapped around its neck and was still born.
Exactly... He’s a self-important jerk. I swear, there was a Sanitation Dept. slowdown going on. I was outside, digging out the Jeep VERY early on Monday morning. It was about 6:30 or so, and I saw 3 plows come down my street, with the blades RAISED. It’s down to bare pavement now, but it wasn’t touched for about 2 days, when they obviously had the chance to do it much earlier. Bloomberg has ticked off a LOT of city workers.
I can’t help wondering why the paramedics didn’t devise a way to reach these people...like hitching a horse to a sleigh, or strapping skis onto a gurney. In other words, get there somehow, whatever it takes. What’s happened to the legendary Yankee ingenuity?
To a degree that is besides the point that a work order went out from the Union bosses for a work slowdown. The union is in breach of contract with the city, the union has blood on their hands over their high paid wages and padded overtime.
A story in the NY Post today claims that several sanitation workers have admitted that their union officials called for them to “slow down” as a protest against budget cuts. If true, then these same officials should be charged and tried for at least manslaughter.
The kicker is that it now appears Union bosses ordered their people to slow down in their plowing.
Google the blizzard of 1888.
Here we go again! Blizzard conditions, white outs, impenetrable streets, but that pregnant lady - SHE’S TO BLAME! Hah!
The sanitation slowdown has been confirmed.
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