Abel Ramirez and his wife, Vanessa, knew all about bringing children into the world. The Syracuse couple already had two children. Their third, Vincent Abel, made a surprise appearance early in the morning on September 18, 2020.
“My wife’s water broke at 1 a.m. and she woke me up,” Ramirez said. “This is our third baby, so we’d been through this before. She took a shower and we waited for her mother to get there to watch our other kids.”
On the way to the hospital, Vanessa told her husband to stop the car. The baby was on the way.
“I didn’t believe her,” Abel said. “I turned on the inside dome lights and I saw the baby’s head. I called 911 and right on the exit I pushed the seat back and the baby just fell into my hands. I couldn’t believe it.”
Abel soon realized his newborn son was not crying. He was blue.
“I’m on the phone with 911,” Abel recalled. “(The dispatcher) wanted me to find something to tie off the umbilical cord. She walked me through it, but I was freaking out. It was very stressful. I tied the cord. He still wasn’t breathing. I turned him over on his back and patted his back. He started breathing but it was very slow.”
Within just a few minutes, AMR arrived. Paramedic Carin Budka grabbed the infant, ran to the truck and instructed her partner, EMT Zach Capron, to stay with Vanessa. Another ambulance arrived to transport Vanessa to the hospital.
“His whole body was blue,” said the 18-year EMS veteran. “They told us at the hospital that his face was bruising – they think because he came out so fast.”
Baby Vincent spent a few hours in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and a few days in the hospital before coming home to join his older brother and sister.
“Having Zach and Carin there was a huge weight off my shoulders,” Abel said. “I got the chance to meet them in May 2021. I realized I didn’t even get a chance to thank them for helping me. You just don’t think about that in the middle of the chaos.”
Carin said being a part of a happy ending is extremely rewarding. “He brought pictures of his family when he came to visit us, and you can see that the baby is growing, healthy and thriving.”