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Family in good shape At hospital, rescued
By Matthew Brown
Staff writer
From a crowded, dark attic surrounded by floodwater in a city pushed to the brink by Hurricane Katrina, 5 pounds, 4 ounces of hope has arrived.
James Kenneth Brundy Jr. was born just after midnight Tuesday to Waldrica Nathan, 19, as she was stranded with family members in her fiance’s 9th Ward attic.
More than 36 hours after they were rescued by boat, Nathan and the baby were in excellent shape Wednesday at West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero, doctors said. The child had been delivered by his father, James Brundy Sr. and his two grandparents, who had picked up a few obstetric skills from watching the Birth Channel.
“The doctors said they were amazed that the family did all the right things,” hospital spokeswoman Jennifer Steel said.
As she lay in a maternity gown in the hospital’s delivery unit,
Nathan said her family’s saga began Monday about 6:30 a.m. Nine months’ pregnant, she and the others were forced to climb into the attic as waters rose rapidly on Metropolitan Street. By about 8 a.m. at the height of the storm, she started having contractions. While she gritted her teeth through the pain, family members dialed 911 but were told no one could help.
“Boats and helicopters were passing by all day but none stopped,” Nathan said. At exactly midnight, her water broke, and James Brundy Jr. was born 22 minutes later.
The grandfather “knew just where to cut the cord and how to tie a shoestring around it,” she said.
“We cleaned him off with some alcohol pads, wrapped him in a clean sheet, and I breast-fed. That’s all he wanted to do, was eat,” she said.
By morning, as the rising sun quickly heated up the house, the newborn’s father and grandfather broke through the roof to try to wave down rescuers. To keep the baby cool, they took him down from the attic to the still-flooded first floor.
In a cradle fashioned from a laundry basket, the baby floated on top of waist-deep water in the living room. Help arrived Tuesday afternoon: a rescue boat manned by agents of the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
“The man was crying in the boat. He couldn’t believe it,” Nathan said. “He was like, ‘A baby, look at this baby!'”
After being dropped off on a highway overpass, mother and baby were driven to the hospital and arrived about 4 p.m. But Nathan said the joy she feels for her new son is tempered by the fact that her own mother, who is 9 months’ pregnant and thought to be trapped in her own attic in another part of town, has not been heard from since the storm.
“We don’t know if that baby is born. We don’t know nothing. We still can’t get in touch with her,” Nathan said. “I’m happy I got through that and survived the storm.”
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Jenny Hatch
Emergency Childbirth
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