NYPD Officers Help Woman Deliver Baby On Highway After Pulling Over Car For Speeding

The hand of the law is sometimes the hand of God.

The NYPD highway officers Thursday (April 9) helped a woman deliver a baby boy on the Staten Island Expressway at Richmond Road after pulling over a car for exceeding the speed limit.

Sergeant Anthony Demonte and officer Adam May were on their usual duty when around 11:30 p.m. they spotted a Toyota Camry heading eastbound on the highway near Richmond Road, moving way over the highway speed limit.

The officers immediately asked the driver to pull over. As the officers approached the vehicle to issue a ticket, they were surprised to find a pregnant lady in the car who was just about to deliver any time.

The 33-year-old husband, who was driving the car, was worried and “adamant” on getting his 32-year-old pregnant wife to the nearby Methodist Hospital as soon as possible.

With no ambulances available at that moment as the services were busy responding to the coronavirus patients, the man saw no other option than driving his wife to the hospital at godspeed.

Officer May understood the man’s desperate situation and tried to calm him down.

“I had to calmly tell him [that] he’s driving nearly double the speed limit,” May told local media. “I even told him on the scene multiple times I don’t want him driving in this excited state.”

“Her water broke right in front of me,” he added.

That’s when 30-year-old May and 43-year-old Sgt. Anthony Demonte realized that they are about to witness and be a part of something risky but wonderful.

‘We’re gonna deliver this baby right here and now” May said.

The officers knew they had no time to waste and immediately “went into EMS mode.”

Officer May was a trained Emergency Medical Technician before he joined the NYPD eight years ago, and Sgt. Demonte was a paramedic before serving in the department.

"I think God was looking down because we have a former EMT and a former paramedic in the cop and the sergeant," Police Commissioner Dermot Shea told local media.

Around 10 minutes after they were pulled over, the miracle of life occurred and the woman gave birth to a baby boy on the expressway. The officers immediately rushed the woman to the Staten Island University North Hospital.

“[May] was driving the car with one hand, and clamping onto the umbilical cord on the other hand, while making our way to the hospital,” Demonte told local media.

As they reached the hospital the doctors and staff there were excited and happy to attend to a new life amid the grim monotony of attending to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I feel like the hospital staff needed something like that, after what they’ve been going through, you know, seeing a brand new baby going through the ER,” Demonte said. “They announced it on the loudspeaker, they played music, and you can hear them cheering, from the outside,” he said.

The baby boy has been named Matthew. He and his family are doing well.