(NEW YORK) — A 25-year-old woman gave birth to a baby girl on a NYC subway train Wednesday morning, according to Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials.
At approximately 11:32 a.m., passengers on a southbound W train alerted the conductor that a woman was giving birth inside one of the cars, according to the MTA.
“As we’re entering 34th Street, you hear her asking, ‘Help, help, help,'” passenger Bryanna Brown, who captured the moment on video, told New York ABC station WABC. “You [then] hear a baby start crying.”
The train stopped at the 34th Street-Herald Square station, under the flagship Macy’s department store. Several commuters assisted the woman in the delivery, with one even cutting the umbilical cord with a pocket knife, according to Brown.
“From our knowledge, she wasn’t a doctor or anything, she was someone who had full knowledge of what to do in this situation,” Brown told ABC News. “Thank God for her.”
The video captured by Brown shows the woman lying on the floor after giving birth, with another passenger hoisting up the newborn and wrapping her in a red cloth.
The conductor “held the train in the station and responded to that car,” accompanied by a NYC Transit Train service supervisor and NYPD officers, the MTA said. Emergency medical services were quickly on the scene and transported the mother and baby to Bellevue Hospital, where the two are both in good condition, according to officials.
There are no details yet on the baby’s name, but Brown described the situation as a “miracle” on 34th Street, paying homage to the iconic 1947 film.
MTA New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said in a statement that this incident is an “example of New Yorkers coming together to assist each other” that reflects “the best of the subway community and this city.”
“We are thrilled that both mother and Baby W are doing well, and look forward to welcoming both of them back aboard for a lifetime of reliable — and hopefully less dramatic — rides,” Crichlow said.
Giving birth in the NYC subway system does happen from time to time. In 2017, an MTA worker helped a mother give birth on a subway platform, while in 2012, a baby boy was born on a J train in downtown Manhattan.
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