Quick thinking officer, paramedics help save baby boy born at gas station

PITTSBURGH — “We were about maybe 2 miles from home. Get out of the car. Run around to the passenger side. She had already had the baby and was holding it in her arms. He was very blue. We couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not,” said Kyle and Vicky Blizzard.

The Blizzards’ new baby was born in a gas station parking lot on Mother’s Day. The parents were in a panic because the child was not breathing. But first responders were not far away.

The Blizzards said their baby’s birth caught them completely by surprise. They said he was 10 weeks early.

“I think we’re still in shock,” the Blizzards said.

It was not the Mother’s Day either of the new parents expected.

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Surveillance cameras captured the moment Sunday morning as the Shaler couple were on their way to the hospital. They pulled into a BP gas station in Millvale.

“She said, 'No the baby is coming now. Pull over. I’m delivering the baby in the car,” Kyle Blizzard said.

It happened before he could even get to the other side of the car. The child was not breathing, and the 911 dispatcher was able to walk Kyle Blizzard through CPR.

“It was so hard to believe I’m actually doing CPR right now. This is a real life-or-death situation,” Kyle Blizzard said.

The couple said their baby was not breathing for five minutes.

“You think, all of this, this can't be it, if something were to happen to him,” the baby's mother, Vicky Blizzard, said.

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The boy was OK because he was still attached to the umbilical cord. Police and paramedics arrived quickly and took over.

“We all work well enough together. We know each other. Very few words were even exchanged on the scene,” said Mark Ford, an emergency medical technician with Ross/West View Emergency Medical Services.

Channel 11 showed those first responders video of their quick response and the moment they took the baby into the ambulance.

“I was just happy that he was responding much better than he had been even moments before,” paramedic Kayla Gordon said.

The newborn is in the neonatal intensive care unit at West Penn Hospital, where he’ll have to stay for six to eight weeks.

“Between the things that they did and the paramedics, they saved this baby’s life,” said Dr. Giovanni Ianeri of West Penn Hospital.

The baby's parents said they are forever grateful.

“We are so thankful and feel so blessed that we had those folks on call that day and to be there with us,” Kyle Blizzard said.

Also involved in this story was Millvale Police Officer Zachary Potetz. According to Millvale Police Chief Timothy Komorowski Sr., Potetz helped perform CPR on the child before paramedics arrived.

Cox Media Group