Malayshia Ervin (left Detective Samantha Villacis reunited on Oct. 23.
Photo by Dean Moses
When Malayshia Ervin went into labor on Oct. 17., she called an Uber and raced to the hospital but was unable to make it in time. Instead, her baby was delivered by the side of Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway with the help of an NYPD detective.
Ervin, already a mother of two, began to give birth in the vehicle, causing the Uber driver to pull over in gridlock traffic. The traffic was so congested that EMS could not gain access. Afraid for the life of his wife and baby, Ervin’s husband, Ernest, rushed into the deluge of cars and wildly waved his arms begging for aid.
“We saw a man in the middle of the road jumping up and down. Initially we thought it was a car accident but as we put our lights on and looked around he yelled: ‘My wife’s in labor!’ We parked the car and jumped out,” Detective Samantha Villacis said, who was riding alongside Sargent Charles Schwartz at the time.
The pair rushed to the scene to discover Ervin had just given birth seconds prior. Villacis reassured the new mother before tending to the newborn who was covered in blood.
“I feel like I didn’t take a breath until I knew the baby was okay. She moved her foot and I realized she was okay,” Villacis said. “My first reaction was just baby, is [the] baby okay?”
While the moment was a whirlwind for the cops, it took a toll on Ervin. Already dealing with the hardship of living inside of a WIN Brooklyn homeless shelter with two children, the last thing she expected was to give birth in the back of an Uber. She wept as she recalled the moment her child was brought into the world.
“It was emotional. This beautiful officer came and calmed me down and told me everything was going to be alright. That was a blessing, that my husband waved down the cars,” Ervin said, tears running down her face. “It had me in disbelief, I have two other kids and never thought I would have delivered in…
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