Frozen Baby Revived, Declared Dead After Birth On Freezing Street
A frozen baby was revived after she was declared dead, and police say the infant had been laying under a sheet for two hours before it was discovered she was actually alive.
The frozen baby revived seemingly spontaneously after a very sad and harrowing arrival into the world during a bitterly cold Toronto winter. The girl’s mother had been feeling unwell early Sunday morning and traveled with her own mother on foot to a Canadian hospital when the trip became too arduous, and soon the child was born in the freezing cold.
Before the frozen baby was revived, police say, her pulse was undetectable. The Toronto Star has been covering the bizarre tale and explains how the baby came to be born in the freezing cold:
“The near-tragic saga began an hour before sunrise on Sunday, when the pregnant woman felt ill and set off with her own mother for the hospital on Finch Ave. W. near Hwy. 400 … It was bitter outside. Temperatures dropped below -15C overnight; the city had issued an extreme cold alert. Snow drifts blocked the sidewalk on the road’s west side.”
The woman, 20, and her mother attempted to navigate chilling winds and snowdrifts, but the paper adds:
“She didn’t make it. She went into labour and had the baby out there on the sidewalk.”
The frozen baby was deemed to have not survived delivery, and the three were transported to the hospital — but the paper says that all of that changed when police observed something unexpected:
“After about an hour and 45 minutes, one of [the officers] noticed the sheet was shifting. The officers took a closer look and felt for a pulse. Upon finding one, they immediately alerted medical staff, who confirmed the baby girl was, in fact, alive.”
While it appears the frozen baby revived spontaneously, a statement after the incident (which is still under investigation) from the hospital confirms that when EMS personnel arrived on scene, “extensive resuscitation efforts” were engaged to save the child before pronouncing her dead.
