By Antonio Planas
Boston Herald
BOSTON — A late-night craving for a sandwich turned into a moment two Boston cops will never forget when they sprang into action Thursday and helped deliver a baby girl from the passenger seat of an SUV near Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“It was just being at the right place, at the right time,” officer Kevin Rowley said yesterday from the Jamaica Plain station. “That’s the funny thing about this job. You just don’t realize sometimes you can step into these situations, you have to deal with them. It was great. It was a miracle.”
Rowley and officer Sean O’Connor explained yesterday they had stopped to get a sandwich shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday when they were flagged down by a man screaming for help. The officers ran to the vehicle and O’Connor opened the passenger door where a mother was reclined in the seat — giving birth — and the newborn was getting her first glimpse of the world. O’Connor was there to play doctor in the “nick of time,” taking the infant and cleaning fluids from her face, nose and mouth.
“The baby was initially pretty blue. ... It’s important to clear that stuff away before that kid takes her first breath,” O’Connor said. “It’s a beautiful moment, anytime a life can come into the world.”
Rowley joked he actually had the tougher job, which was calming down the father, Zhen Xing, who had frantically driven to the hospital from Brookline and was looking for medical help when the officers showed up.
“Trying to get to the hospital, the mom is giving birth in the car as he’s driving there, now he’s trying to get help. It was a traumatic event for him,” Rowley said.
The happy mother, Haoyan Sun, wrote a letter thanking the Boston Police Department, O’Connor and Rowley:
“We were so lucky that, at that time, Police Officers Kevin Rowley and Sean O’Connor were on night duties. ... I can’t imagine what ... (would have happened) to me and our baby if Police Officer Kevin Rowley and Sean O’Connor were not with us at that moment.”
The baby, named Aria, was at home with her parents in time for her first Mother’s Day yesterday, the officers said.
O’Connor said his wife helped put together a care package for the family that included a pink onesie with a police badge stitched on it, and a book — “On the Night You Were Born.”
The title prompted Rowley to chime in: “Even though it’s a great book, it probably is not going to have the same caliber of a story as this child’s story is going to have.”
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