Delaware County mother thanks paramedics who saved her baby outside closed Crozer-Chester Medical Center
A Delaware County woman is reliving the frightening moments after her baby had a medical emergency outside Crozer-Chester Medical Center.
In an exclusive interview with CBS News Philadelphia, Shaniqua Whitaker, of Marcus Hook, said she was at work at the time and her 5-month-old daughter, Shyanne Glen, was with her aunt.
"They just called and said she wasn't breathing and my heart just dropped," Whitaker said.
The medical emergency happened last week as a news conference outside the hospital in Upland, hosted by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, was wrapping up.
Dai'shanik Dickerson, Shyanne's aunt, said she was driving to Hobby Lobby with her niece in the back seat when she noticed something was wrong.
Dickerson pulled over next to a group of paramedics and police officers who were gathered for the news conference.
"When the officer took [Shyanne] from my hands, she was weak at the point, and he patted her aggressively twice in the back, and she let out the noise," Dickerson said. "And that was like a breath of fresh air for me."
Even though Shyanne was at Crozer, she couldn't be admitted for treatment because the hospital has been shut down for weeks as its parent company, Prospect Medical Holdings, deals with bankruptcy.
VMSC Emergency Medical Services, whose staff members were on scene, took Shyanne by ambulance to Nemours Children's Hospital in Wilmington, a 20-minute drive away, where she was given a diagnosis.
"They said it was an episode called BRUE, where it's like a brief resolved unexplained episode where babies will stop breathing for a brief moment," Whitaker said.
Whitaker fears what could have happened if paramedics hadn't been in the right place at the right time.
"It's fortunate that she [my daughter] was okay, but not everyone is going to have the same, you know, outcome," Whitaker said. "Thank you to the paramedics, to the cop who helped do the baby Heimlich, who got her to breathe again."
Whitaker said her scare speaks to the potential consequences of a growing healthcare desert in Delaware County.
"I couldn't imagine if something would have happened to my sister's only child, my only niece," Dickerson.
