Woman Saves Grandchild Born in Car on Freeway

Esther Sanchez gave new meaning to the words “jump start” Saturday when she helped deliver her granddaughter inside a car on the Ventura Freeway and then saved the newborn’s life with CPR.

The Agoura Hills housekeeper, her husband and their pregnant daughter were driving to Ventura County Medical Center about noon when Sanchez’s daughter went into labor in the back seat of the family’s two-door gray compact.

Sanchez told her husband, Juan Flores, to pull over to the shoulder of the freeway near Rancho Road after her daughter’s water broke, said Dr. Claudia Jensen, the newborn’s Ventura pediatrician.

“The grandmother had the sense to know the baby wasn’t far behind,” Jensen said.

As the car rolled to a stop, Sanchez’s daughter, who lives in Newbury Park and did not want to be identified, delivered a girl she named after her mother. Esther the newborn, though, arrived purple and limp.

What happened in the next few minutes was a textbook example of basic lifesaving skills, Jensen said.

Esther was not breathing, so Sanchez sucked amniotic fluid out of her mouth, performed CPR and then spanked her granddaughter on the rear. The process went on for several minutes until the baby began breathing, Jensen said.

When firefighters and paramedics arrived, they found little Esther wrapped in her grandfather’s sweater.

“The baby was fine and in good condition,” Ventura County Fire Capt. Norm Stafford said. “It was amazing.”

Stafford and a firefighter rode in an ambulance with mother and baby to Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, where both were in good condition Saturday night, hospital officials said.

“She saved her granddaughter’s life,” Jensen said. “If she had not done those things, the baby would have been DOA in the ER.”

Sanchez, who once worked in a child-care facility, said she learned the life-saving measures from watching television, Jensen said.

“I started praying to God. This was muy, muy grande,” Sanchez said.

At birth, baby Esther weighed 6 pounds 3 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long, Jensen said.