When I heard a 7-month-old baby had been pulled from the debris of a building collapse yesterday on upper Broadway, I (and my wife, who went to Columbia for grad school) shuddered.
Then, um, I wondered what kind of stroller the kid was riding. Because I couldn't see it in all the helicopter-cam coverage. Well now, the story can be told. It was a Mountain Buggy Urban Double, and it's credited with saving the kid's life, according to this Newsday article:
"The stroller kind of cocooned the baby," said Jesus Palacios, 31, a paramedic who worked on resuscitating the child in an ambulance on the way to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center.And the Post puts it this way: "the calamity's littlest victim was saved by a tank-tough, $600-plus baby stroller that shielded her from the crashing rubble.""The stroller bent, and when it bent it had a pocket in the middle and that was what shielded the baby," said Awilda Cordero, a friend of the nanny who was caring for the child.
But you have to turn to the Daily News to answer the remaining, burning questions:
A Double? The nanny had just dropped off the 2-year-old brother at nursery school.
And blue [the stroller, I mean.]
In comments somewhere on the sites, someone recently asked if there were a lot of Mountain Buggies in New York City. There are, but I have a feeling there're gonna a lot more very soon.
Check the Mountain Buggy USA site for dealer information. [mountainbuggyusa.com]
Posh stroller may have saved baby's life [newsday.com, thanks to DT reader Dave for the spot]
STROLLER SAVES BABY IN W. SIDE COLLAPSE [nypost.com]
Small miracle found in rubble [dailynews.com]
Someone on Urban Baby yesterday said that these strollers are being recalled. Interesting, and they couldn't have asked for better P.R...
Thanks for the shout out from my earlier post. Kind of a freak occurance, though - I wonder how much the stroller had to do with it. Perhaps lady luck had a stronger hand.
Recalled stroller
Here's the link www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml05/05226.html
The recall is indeed noteworthy - this is one of the reasons I got a 2004 model (the clearance price wasn't bad either). Interesting PR work for the New Zeland company - gotta deal with a recall on some 2005 models, but then this international story falls into your lap that is narrativized into "stroller saves baby." Maybe they cancel each other out?
But then again, a limited recall doesn't get international press coverage.
hey you people with strollers
go back to the suburbs where you belong
the city is no place to raise a family anyway
AND YOU ARE RUINING IT!!
U R SHEEP
Maybe the next building will fall on some wannabe hipsters who just fled the suburbs.
Wow. I didn't realize the city was essentially a big singles club for angry people. Good to know ...