Woman stranded on N.Y. bridge gives birth

SLEEPY HOLLOW, N.Y. — A woman stuck in a four-hour traffic jam on a bridge spanning the Hudson River went into labor and nearly had her baby in the car.

Ashley Larkin, now a mother of two, left her home in Piermont, N.Y.,  on Friday morning and headed to the Phelps Memorial Hospital Center with her husband, Brian. Unbeknownst to them, a tractor-trailer had just rolled over on the northbound side of the Tappan Zee Bridge, shutting down all seven lanes of the bridge.

With Ashley Larkin having contractions in the passenger seat, the couple found themselves stranded on the toll bridge on what was supposed to be a 15-mile trip to the hospital.

Matthew Forestire, a New York state trooper, happened to be in an unmarked patrol car behind the Larkins.

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"I saw this car with its hazards on, the driver's arm sticking out, honking his horn. And I immediately realized his wife was in severe distress," he said.

Forestire tried to inch through the traffic, his siren blaring, with the Larkins trailing him. Nothing budged, so he got out of his car and along with Brian Larkin carried the pregnant woman over the bridge's central barrier.

"This was definitely a first for me," Forestire said. A mechanical failure on a tractor-trailer caused it to roll over, displacing the bridge's barrier between oncoming traffic and strewing scrap metal debris across multiple lanes. No one was injured.

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Recovering at Phelps Memorial, Maudie Emilia Larkin and her mother are in fine health, spokeswoman Tina Dorfman said.

Brian Larkin was forced to stay with his car and watch a waiting state patrol cruiser on the northbound side of the bridge, which was closed as emergency crews cleaned up debris from the accident, whisk his wife away.

As the patrol car reached the accident scene, the trooper told Ashley Larkin that they were not likely to make it to the hospital in time.

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Now without her husband and continuing to have contractions, she began to panic. But workers cleared a path through the metal debris with some even cheering her along.

Once on the east side of the Hudson, Ashley Larkin was transferred to a Tarrytown, N.Y. volunteer ambulance and rushed to Phelps Memorial. But she had waited long enough.

The baby was born just as the ambulance pulled up to the hospital.

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"I don't think I'll ever have an experience like this again," she said hours later as she recuperated in the hospital. "Within the span of 15 minutes I met the most amazing people, many of whom were strangers, who all helped me get a little part of the way to where I needed to be.".

"I'm just so grateful," she said.

Follow Richard Liebson and Gabriel Rom on Twitter: @RichLiebson and @GabrielRom1