By REBECCA SHALOMOFF
Firefighters, neighbors rush to aid of woman
Lounging on his couch flipping through Saturday night television shows, Ian Waters, a Meadowmere Park volunteer fireman, got a page on his beeper signaling the event that would go down in the history of the fire department.
Immediately, Waters rushed to the Gresser's house down the road. Seeing his neighbor, Lenore lying on her linoleum kitchen floor screaming in agony with a newborn baby's head already emerging into the world, he moved fast to deliver a healthy, baby boy without a moment to spare. "It's about as close as I have ever come to witnessing a miracle," Waters said.
On Feb. 10, Michael Ryan Gresser was born. He is Michael and Lenore Gresser's first son in a family of three daughters, Christine, Danielle and Samantha. And he is the first baby ever to be delivered by Meadowmere Park firefighters.
The special occasion began earlier that day when the Gressers were on their way to Brooklyn Hospital, calm and well-prepared for the birth of their fourth child to take place. Finding out that her contractions were too sporadic and she was not dilated enough, Gresser was told to go home.
Towards the end of the day, she returned to the hospital because her contractions were regular and coming more often, as well, some bleeding had occurred. Her obstetrician, who was in New Jersey, had the on-call doctor monitor her contractions. But she was released from the hospital before she should have been, without informing her regular doctor, the Gressers said. She was mistakenly told that she still was not ready to give birth.
Because within minutes of arriving home after spending an hour on the Belt Parkway, Gresser's water broke and she said she could feel the baby coming.
In a state of panic and urgency, Mr. Gresser moved his wife to the kitchen and sprinted across the street to pull the alarm in front of the fire station, trusting local firemen, who are also his friends, to come right away, he said. "I never thought I was going to have to deliver my own baby," he said.
Gasping for air in a mad dash back to his wife, Mr. Gresser returned to find the crown of his baby's head beginning to emerge. Minutes later, Waters, who is the volunteer fire department's captain, rushed to aid the woman, and former fire chief, Steven MacFadden, trailed behind him. "I don't even remember walking up the stairs [to their house]," Waters said. "I didn't have time to think."
But the moment he saw the baby's head appear, he said his seven years of Emergency Medical Technician training just kicked in. He knew exactly what to do his first time delivering a baby, something he told his mother, JoAnn Waters, that he would never do.
MacFadden, who assisted in the birth, had delivered a baby only once before while he worked as a New York City police officer. Ms. Gresser's longtime friend and neighbor, Irene Pereira, a registered nurse, held her head and coached her breathing. Her friends were scattered around the house making sure everything was okay. Many neighbors gathered outside the Gresser's home in an atmosphere of excitement and joy. "Half my neighborhood was here," Ms. Gresser said. "It was quite an experience."
