US mom gives birth to baby boy in backseat of livery cab
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A woman in the US gave birth to her son in the backseat of a livery cab after she could not make it to a hospital on time.
Finn Murray Sweeney popped into the world on 51st St. and Seventh Ave. as a steel-nerved cabby rushed his parents to Roosevelt Hospital.
"He is definitely going to be an adventurer and a New York man," the New York Daily News quoted Finn's delighted mother, Even Sweeney of Brooklyn, as saying.
"Cops and EMTs were his first friends," she said.
Sweeney, 42, started having slow and sporadic contractions at about 5 p.m. and an hour and a half later, her contractions were happening once every two minutes.
She and her partner, Inez Murray, opted to leave their Prospect Heights home for the hospital.
They called the Arecibo cab company, and driver Juan Hernandez showed up within minutes.
"Her contractions were very severe, but she's tough," Murray, 46, said.
About 20 minutes after she jumped in the cab, Sweeney's water broke.
"I saw the head crowning at about 2 inches," Murray, a top executive at Women's World Banking, a nonprofit microfinance organization, said.
"It frightened the life out of me," she revealed.
Sweeney, a novelist, was yelling in pain. The cab was stuck in traffic on 51st St. near Park Ave.
Murray asked Hernandez to call 911, and an operator told him to stop the car and wait for help.
"I knew she was going into labour. In my head, I was saying, ''I've got to get her to the hospital as fast as I can''," the cab driver said.
He drove on, and moments later, Finn popped out.
"His head came out like a big cork," Murray, who has a 4-year-old daughter with Sweeney, said.
"He looked blue and green. We grabbed him, wrapped him in her pants and put him against her," she explained.
Several cops and an ambulance arrived within seconds.
New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell paramedics Sylvia Farrell and Scott Strong climbed into the car and clipped the umbilical cord. The mom and baby emerged from the cab to cheers.
"When they lifted her onto the stretcher, everyone broke out in applause. It was so New York," Murray added.
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