A Closer Look (Part 50)

Brooklyn, New York, August 1952. My Mom and my Dad's cousin take a lunch break.

During this time, Mom was an intern at Wyckoff Heights Hospital. In the early 1950s, there were no EMTs. Instead, interns rode the ambulance runs. Mom made many emergency trips throughout New York City. A number of those emergencies were deliveries. It was policy to discourage delivery in the ambulance. Physicians were to determine whether the expectant mother could be transported safely to the hospital. Mom, who still spoke little English, remembers many trips during which she spent most of the ride yelling, "Mama! No Push!!" Mom once decided labor was too far along for the mother to make it to the hospital, so she delivered the baby in an apartment bathroom. A story about that event made it into the newspaper.

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