Pregnant Woman, Miracle Baby Survive Shooting
Published: May 24, 2006
A new mom is speaking out about the emergency delivery of her child just hours after she was struck by a stray bullet.
Police are still searching for suspects in the shooting Monday night on the Southwest Side.
Crystal Cook, 25, was hit in the hip. Hours later, she delivered a healthy baby girl by Cesarean.
CBS 2’s Suzanne Le Mignot reports the woman is certainly counting her blessings.
“Because it was nothing but the grace of God,” Crystal Cook said through tears.
Crystal Cook talked about her one-day-old daughter, Carla Grace Patricia Sanders. Cook nicknamed her “Miracle” because of the circumstances that brought her into the world one month early.
“I was just thanking God that she made it through when she started breathing on her own,” Crystal said.
Carla was born by emergency C-section at Mt Sinai Hospital, just hours after her mother was shot and wounded. It happened in the courtyard of the family’s apartment on the Southwest Side.
The bullet penetrated the baby’s umbilical cord, but it appears that she will be all right. Grace weighs 4 lbs., 8 oz. She is now breathing on her own, and her blood pressure is normal.
“I said there’s no way. That baby has got to have gotten shot. And we were all shocked at the miracle,” said Dr. Barbara Gardner.
Crystal was in the courtyard of her apartment building when gunfire broke out. She ran to protect her 4-year-old son. The bullet hit her, making its way through her pelvis. Then, she fell on her stomach.
“The violence should just stop because innocent people like me get hurt and it could have been my four-year-old,” she said.
Her mother, Patricia Beamon, saw it all happen.
“I had to determine if she was shot or not and I couldn’t. It was hard. I never seen my child’s blood before. She’s 25 years old,” said Beamon.
Police are looking for two suspects and say the shooting could be gang related. It happened in a place that’s no stranger to gangs and crime – right on the border of Bridgeport and Pilsen in the shadow of the Stevenson Expressway.
Police say it appears Cook was not the target of the young men.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: