The life of a newborn baby girl was saved by a pair of New Jersey Transit officers who rushed to perform CPR, with the dramatic events captured on body cam.
The little girl was born in the bathroom stall at Newark Penn Station, and wasn't breathing. The first responders were at first shocked to find the mother who had just given birth, then saw the condition the baby was in.
"Working here, you see a lot of things, but expecting a baby in a mother's arms that's a newborn, that's nothing that we would expect," said Officer Bryan Richards. "I took possession of the baby to do the assessment on it. We didn't know how long the baby was in this world."
Richards had twelve years of experience as an EMT, and was seen on his partner's bodycam giving CPR to the newborn in the bathroom sink. He, along with Officer AL Nunes, then made the pivotal decision to run through the lobby of Penn Station, the baby in Richards' arms. Nunes got behind the wheel and took off for the hospital, a frantic race to save the child's life.
"We just knew what we had to do: Get the baby and (Richards) to the hospital, and that's what we did," Nunes said.
Both officers admitted the stakes were high, but experience and teamwork helped save the little girl. En route to the hospital, as Richards continued to perform chest compressions and a heart message, they heard something that gave them hope: a cry.
"I was so happy, so excited that I heard the baby crying, because that meant the baby was breathing," Nunes said.
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"It's already high stress, high adrenaline, but once I had the baby crying, it was a big sigh of relief. A happy moment that the baby was crying, and everything we were doing was helping," Richards said.
The officers were able to get the child to the hospital in time to get her the proper care she needed. She remains at University Hospital under evaluation with her mother, but she is expected to survive — thanks in no small part to the quick thinking and actions from the two officer.
