Brooklyn nursing student Aionga Pereira, 35, got some first-hand experience in the delivery room this morning, but it was the back seat of a neighbor’s car.
Pereira, a fourth-year nursing student at Long Island University, was on her way to the library to study when she saw her pregnant upstairs neighbor, Crystal Cardona, 24, and several hysterical men all scrambling around a Nissan sedan parked outside her window in Prospect Heights around 10 a.m.
“I realized — whoa — she’s having the baby in the back seat of the car,” said Pereira, who is also a mom.
Pereira, who wants to be a midwife, grabbed a clean towel and went to work.
“I’m really just happy that I did OB (obstetrics) last semester,” she said. “But that didn’t take the nervousness away.”
While Cardona’s rattled hubby, Miguel Cumberbatch, coaxed from the driver’s seat, Pereira guided the head and shoulders of the baby girl.
“The only concern was I had to suction out the nose and mouth so she didn’t choke,” she said. “So I put the baby’s head to the side so the fluid could drain out.”
Paramedics arrived midway and took over the rest of the delivery, before taking the healthy mother and child to Methodist Hospital.
“I just have to stop by my professor’s office and thank her,” said a relieved Pereira, who got an A-minus in her obstretrics class.
“It’s safe when you’re in the hospital you feel so comfortable, but when its you, when you are in the backseat of the car and there is no one to back you up, it’s nerve-wracking. I was so happy when the EMS arrived,” she said.