The courageous aunt of the 5-month-old baby that stopped breathing along a gridlocked Miami highway recounted Friday the dramatic fight to save the boy’s life — all captured by a professional photographer.
Pamela Rauseo, 37, said instinct prompted her to check on little Sebastian de la Cruz — who had gone from wailing hysterically in his car seat to dead silent in a moment while the two were in standstill traffic.
“When he stopped crying, I sensed something might be wrong. It was like a gut feeling,” Rauseo told The Daily News. “I firmly believe that God somehow told me ‘you need to get back there.'”
After Rauseo parked abruptly on the Dolphin Expressway, she discovered that the infant’s pinkish glow had been replaced with a hauntingly pale color – she knew she was racing against time.
“When I got out of my car and I was screaming for help, that’s what was going through my head — we’re losing him,” she said. “I remember pounding on the pavement saying ‘this cannot be happening.'”
The two had just come from a doctor’s visit at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where Sebastian’s mother Paola Vargas, 27, works as a nurse, the aunt said.
Sebastian has been suffering from sporadic breathing problems since January after catching a wicked cold, she added. The persistent problems reemerged last week and the concerned mom booked a Thursday appointment. The aunt believes that Sebastian’s terrifying episode was exacerbated by the muggy Miami heat.
Rauseo, who owns the Miami-based interior design firm Round321 and crafted Sebastian’s nursery, babysits the adorable tot when his mother is at work.
“She trusted me with him,” Rauseo said. “I would never forgive myself if I let her down like that.”
The brave Rauseo — who isn’t certified to perform CPR but received a brief tutorial on the life-saving technique when her own seven-year-old son was hospitalized for respiratory issues when he was an infant — breathed life into the little boy twice in the span of a few minutes, which the aunt said felt like an eternity.
Little Sebastian had responded to the initial set of compressions, but slipped out of consciousness seconds later, she said. A cadre of emergency crews, including Sweetwater Police and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, joined in the nerve-wracking revival mission.
Fire Capt. Anthony Trim and Lt. Alvaro Tonanez were stuck in the same gridlocked traffic when the call came over the radio dispatch regarding a child in cardiac arrest.
“We were there within 30 seconds, that’s how close we were,” Trim said Friday.
Trim credited the aunt’s poised and rapid response as the key to the crisis having a positive outcome.
“I can only imagine what it would be like to do CPR on a five-month-old family member. She performed it and she performed it well. It was a game changer,” Trim said. “It’s something akin to a miracle. So many things had to happen.”
Sebastian remained hospitalized on Friday while undergoing tests to determine why he stopped breathing.
Those frantic moments were captured by award-winning Miami Herald shutterbug Al Diaz, who helped alert nearby authorities to the crisis.
“It’s probably my best spot news picture ever,” he said. “I’ve been getting a lot of praise, but the hero in the story is Pamela — she saved the baby.”
Diaz’s haunting images show the limp baby nestled in Rauseo’s arms as she dives in to bring the boy back from the brink of death.
“They’re terrifying. Seeing these images, it’s scary,” she said. “It reminds me how easily we could have lost him. How easily it could have gone the other way.”
The quick-thinking aunt brushed back any claims that she is a hero.
“I feel like I did what I had to do. I did what anyone would have done in that situation,” she said. “It’s that simple.”
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