By Andrew Strickler and Michael Frazier
Newsday
Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.
STEWART MANOR, N.Y. — As he rushed from a holiday party to a nearby house, Daniel O’Keefe thought the “bad” emergency he’d been called to was probably a car crash, or maybe a domestic accident.
But O’Keefe, a nine-year police paramedic and an assistant chief with the Stewart Manor Fire Department, was stunned by what he found: a young woman covered in blood, holding a minutes-old infant barely bigger than his hand.
“In all my years of doing this, I never saw anything like it,” he said. “I never knew a baby could be that small.”
Holding the baby in one hand, O’Keefe cleared the baby’s mouth, gently compressed its chest, and used a bulb syringe to blow air into its underdeveloped lungs.
Minutes later, the 1 lb., 6 oz., baby girl was on her way to the hospital. Now 4 months old, Ava weighs almost 8 pounds and is expected to live a full life.
“I know for a fact that if they didn’t ... know what to do so well that my daughter wouldn’t be here today,” said Elizabeth Castro, 21, who gave birth 16 weeks prematurely on Dec. 16.
For their actions, O’Keefe and the Stewart Manor Fire Department will receive a citation tonight at the annual Nassau County Fire Commission awards ceremony in Mineola. Commission chairman Andrew DeMartin said the award was well deserved because the group saved a fragile life by quickly tailoring their medical response to such a tiny infant.
“With a baby that small, it complicates things tenfold,” he said. “They did a terrific job.”
Castro said Ava, her first child, arrived after a difficult pregnancy, and that a neighbor alerted O’Keefe and others as they gathered in another fireman’s house nearby.
O’Keefe said Castro, who also blew into Ava’s mouth in the minutes after the birth, also deserved credit for saving Ava. “I knew I had to clear out her mouth from watching those stupid hospital shows on TV,” she said with a laugh.
Castro said she expects Ava to develop normally but her child still gets oxygen to help her breath. “She’s doing just fine,” she added.
Castro broke the news of Ava’s premature birth to her husband, Army Pfc. Fabian Castro Jr., in a phone call to his base near Baghdad. “He was just in shock. He didn’t know what to think,” she said. “His first concern was just getting home to see her.”