NYCkayaker Kayak anyone? Pregnant ma gets a special delivery

[Nancy Brous]

i'm sure i won't be the only one to post this.

from the NY Daily News:

<<Police and paramedics used borrowed kayaks to rescue a pregnant woman
after the torrential rains turned her Queens neighborhood into a flood zone.


Jasmine Morales, 20, who is past her due date, called 911 when the storm
woke her up and she realized the baby inside her wasn't moving and her
stomach felt cold to the touch.

"She thought the baby died and she wanted to go to the hospital," said her
husband, car-service driver Darwin Delgado, 31.

An ambulance from Jamaica Hospital arrived quickly - only to find a
waist-deep river between Kissena Blvd. and Morales' home on Peck Ave.

Emergency medical technician Robert McAuley called the NYPD and FDNY for
help - and he and his partner waited for a boat.

Cops then climbed along fences to reach Morales, but they had no way to get
her back to the ambulance.

Meanwhile, Morales' next-door neighbor Jennifer Chaparro, 30, got
increasingly worried about the hysterical mom-to-be.

"She was in a lot of pain," she said. "You could see in her face that she
was not doing well."

That's when Chaparro remembered that she had seen two local residents
paddling around the neighborhood in kayaks.

She got word out to John Ocampo, 31, and his brother-in-law Joseph
Uchanowicz, 28, who were out in the watercraft surveying the damage. When
they heard the cry for help, they quickly came to the rescue.

Uchanowicz let McAuley use his red kayak to get from the ambulance to the
house.

"The EMT said this wasn't a part of the job description," Uchanowicz said.
"I asked him if he's ever been in a kayak. He said no. I said, 'There's a
first time for everything,' and he got in."

Once he reached her, McAuley gave Morales oxygen and then helped her into
Ocampo's yellow kayak. Ocampo pulled her through the mucky water to the
ambulance, while a cop walked alongside and held her hand.

"I was a little scared," the Honduran immigrant said.

The young woman was taken to New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens,
where doctors did some tests and determined her baby girl was fine - and not
ready to be born.

Even though it was a false alarm, Ocampo said he was happy to be of service.

"It's strange, right, to kayak in the middle of Flushing?" he said. "But I'm
glad we did because they know who to call when they need help."
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