Bellport mom reunites with emergency responders who delivered baby on kitchen floor
South County Ambulance Chief of Department Gregory C. Miglino Jr. came through the door just as the baby was making his way into the world.
The expectant mother was on the kitchen floor in the Bellport home in excruciating pain, while Suffolk County police officers Ryan Quarte and Jaime Tagliamonte, South Country Assistant Chief of Operations Joseph Craig, paramedic Luis Salinas and EMTs Danielle Hanley and Anna Larosa attended to her — doing all they could to help get baby Kendall into the world safely.
But then it became apparent the newborn was in distress — the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.
He was blue and weathered and not responding normally.
One thing is certain, mother Heather Warren said: Without the police and EMTs "we don't know what would have happened and we don't like to think about it."
Emergency responders from that day were reunited Thursday with Warren, her husband Christian Buduarjo, their baby son Kendall and 4-year-old son Kennedy, during a news conference at police headquarters in Yaphank. The fact that mom and baby are healthy, officials and family said, is all thanks to the work done the morning of Aug. 19 in that Bellport kitchen.
"The situation, which seems routine on TV, quickly had deteriorated into something worse," Miglino said Thursday.
"Most people see that we've had to deliver a baby and they think, 'OK, but that's part of the job.' And it is," he added. "But, what people don't always understand is that you're there in someone's kitchen, mom's on the floor, family's around, and that when something doesn't go as planned, when something goes wrong, you're not in some antiseptic environment where you can just have a way to deal with it. You've got to figure it out."
That day, Miglino said, his EMTs responded along with the two Fifth Precinct officers. They had everything in place and were helping Warren with the delivery when it all went south.
"As I'm coming through the door, the baby's coming through," Miglino said, "and we have the police officers retrieve equipment we need as we start to figure out how to deal with the umbilical cord around the baby's neck. The child's blue. But, fortunately, the umbilical is loose enough — and, we're trained to slip a finger under the umbilical if that's the case — and so we slip a finger under the umbilical and lift it over the child's head and we think that's it."
Warren said she and her family are grateful for the emergency responders that day and that they are "forever going to be a part of our family and our lifelong story," she said. "Kendall will always know who delivered him and how it happened."
With James Carbone
John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”
