When Malayshia Ervin went into labor on Oct. 17., she called an Uber and raced to the hospital but was unable to make it in time. Instead, her baby was delivered by the side of Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway with the help of an NYPD detective.
Ervin, already a mother of two, began to give birth in the vehicle, causing the Uber driver to pull over in gridlock traffic. The traffic was so congested that EMS could not gain access. Afraid for the life of his wife and baby, Ervin’s husband, Ernest, rushed into the deluge of cars and wildly waved his arms begging for aid.
“We saw a man in the middle of the road jumping up and down. Initially we thought it was a car accident but as we put our lights on and looked around he yelled: ‘My wife’s in labor!’ We parked the car and jumped out,” Detective Samantha Villacis said, who was riding alongside Sargent Charles Schwartz at the time.
The pair rushed to the scene to discover Ervin had just given birth seconds prior. Villacis reassured the new mother before tending to the newborn who was covered in blood.
“I feel like I didn’t take a breath until I knew the baby was okay. She moved her foot and I realized she was okay,” Villacis said. “My first reaction was just baby, is [the] baby okay?”
While the moment was a whirlwind for the cops, it took a toll on Ervin. Already dealing with the hardship of living inside of a WIN Brooklyn homeless shelter with two children, the last thing she expected was to give birth in the back of an Uber. She wept as she recalled the moment her child was brought into the world.
“It was emotional. This beautiful officer came and calmed me down and told me everything was going to be alright. That was a blessing, that my husband waved down the cars,” Ervin said, tears running down her face. “It had me in disbelief, I have two other kids and never thought I would have delivered in the back of a car.”
When Ervin finally made it to the hospital, Detective Villacis visited her but unfortunately did not have the opportunity to meet the newborn. So, on Oct. 23, they gathered outside of the WIN shelter to reunite where Villacis was able to hold the infant.
“It is the first time I am seeing her without being covered in blood,” Villacis joked. “She is beautiful.”
Ervin says she was shocked to learn that Villacis yearned to keep in contact and said that now they have a bond for life.
“Certain people do things and then just continue on with their life. I was shocked when the nurses said: miss Ervin you have a visitor and she [Villacis] came with flowers,” Ervin said.
Charles McEvoy, Chief of Brooklyn Patrol Borough South, told amNewYork Metro that his cops are ready to face the unexpected each day, even if that means helping bring a new life into the Big Apple.
“Every day that we put on this uniform when we go out, we could run into anything. There’s no doubt that we’ve learned something new every day and we see something different that we’ve never seen before,” Chief McEvoy said.
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