TV Crew Helps Homeless Woman Give Birth in MacArthur Park

In a section of MacArthur Park, where lives are often lost to crack cocaine, a new life began early Thursday when a young, homeless woman gave birth to a baby girl.

Paramedics, normally summoned to the lakeside park west of downtown to treat addicts who have overdosed on drugs, were called to the scene about 3:45 a.m. and “found this young girl on the ground,” Los Angeles Fire Department Inspector Ed Reed said. “There were homeless people around her and one was holding the child, still attached by the umbilical cord to the mother.”

Eugenia Marin, 21, had apparently delivered the 5-pound, 4 1/2-ounce infant herself, assisted by the light of a free-lance television news crew that arrived on the scene.

“They just left the light on,” said Gary Arnote, owner of Newsreel Video Service, whose crew had heard the call to paramedics on a police scanner. “If we helped, we’re glad to have done it.”

Fire Department officials said Marin had been living in the park since September.

“The baby was cold and dirty,” Reed said, adding that paramedics clamped the umbilical cord, cleaned the infant, and wrapped her in a blanket before taking her and her mother to a hospital.

“It’s a horrible way and place to have a baby,” said Brad Lenhoff, one of the paramedics who assisted Marin. “But it looks as though the baby will make it.”

Mother and daughter were in good condition at California Medical Center, a spokeswoman said.