On the corner of Broad and Oxford streets on Monday, Aug. 26, a small gathering of four soon became five, as officers Justin Busam and Chris DeRose delivered an infant girl amid the chaos of the busy city street.
Earlier that night, when Kamille Young departed for the hospital with her boyfriend it soon became clear that her third child was not going to wait to meet the world any longer. The two officers were then flagged down by the couple for assistance.
“Nine times out of 10 it is a false alarm,” Busam said, describing his initial reaction to the couple’s plight.
Busam, a trained EMT, went on to explain that upon performing a quick examination of the mother, he quickly realized that this was no false alarm.
DeRose gathered supplies and Busam readied the mother to meet her newest child.
“First push, the baby started crowning. Second push, I had the baby all the way up to head and by the third push, the baby was out within two minutes,” said Busam, “I wrapped the baby in the father’s T-shirt and put the baby on the chest, umbilical cord and everything still attached.”
Both officers explained that to remove the umbilical cord in the field was not ideal, and they did not continue to perform any procedures before before the family and baby were transported to Temple University Hospital.
Healthy baby Aamanee, weighing in at 6-pounds-8- ounces, was born at 12:42 a.m. on Broad and Oxford streets.
Since the event, the two officers visited mother and child and report that both are doing extremely well.
“It felt really good to finally do something different; to do something good. I mean we do good everyday when we catch criminals, but there’s always a victim involved with that, so it’s a bit negative,” DeRose said.
“This was positive all around,” added Busam, “This couldn’t have gone more perfect than it did.”
Cindy Stansbury can be reached at cindy.stansbury@temple.edu.
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