Updated 09:42 PM EDT, Thu, Mar 28, 2024

Woman Delivers Baby on NYC Sidewalk Assisted by Doorman, Good Samaritans

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A 39-year-old pregnant woman had no choice but to deliver her baby on a New York City street corner Monday afternoon.

Polly McCourt was trying to hail a taxi to take herself to the hospital when she collapsed on an Upper East Side street and gave birth in the middle of a crosswalk.

The curbside delivery happened near her apartment on East 68th Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan around 4 p.m. Monday. She says she went downstairs and the doorman, Anton Rudovic, immediately assisted her in getting to the hospital.

"He was trying desperately to hail a cab," said McCourt, according to ABC News. However, "a lady walked out five minutes in front and hailed the cab and got into it," McCourt told local reporters from her hospital bed. "I went, 'No, that's my cab.'"

McCourt knew that the baby was on its way, so she told the doorman that she was not going to make it to the hospital. "I turned around and said, 'I need to actually sit down.'"

Rudovic propped her up and she went into labor as Good Samaritans came to her aid, including a young doctor and bystanders who covered her with coats. She delivered her baby girl in less than five minutes, said an eye witness. An ambulance arrived minutes later while McCourt was still laying on the pavement.

Her husband, Dad Cian McCourt, 40, was stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel when he got the call, and arrived on the scene three minutes after his daughter's birth.

"It was a crazy experience," he told the New York Post. "My wife was really calm very together....She's a strong woman." 

Mother and baby were rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital, where they were found to be in good health.

"I'm overjoyed for the birth of my little girl. It's been quite emotional," said the father of the newborn.

The couple named the baby Ila Isabelle McCourt after a woman named Isabelle who gave the mother her coat.

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