people work together to lift bus off pregnant woman

[Amby 490]

NEW YORK - Horrified bystanders banded together to lift a 5-tonne school bus off a pregnant woman pinned underneath, enabling doctors to save her son.

Donnette Sanz, 33, a traffic agent for the city police department, was pronounced dead Thursday, shortly after her baby's birth by an emergency C-section. The three-pound, six-ounce boy was in critical condition.

Sanz was walking across a Bronx street around lunchtime Thursday when she was struck by a van that pushed her in front of the bus.

"I ran out of my house to join 10 people trying to lift up the bus," said Cheryl Brown, 47. "At first, we couldn't get it up, so then another 10 people ran over to help, and we got the bus up and the lady out."

The van's driver, Walter Walker, was arrested on charges of criminally negligent homicide and driving without a licence, police said.

"My brakes went out," said Walker, 72. "The light turned red, and I couldn't stop. ... I tried to miss her."

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Walker had 20 suspensions to his driver's licence.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg met with Sanz's husband, Rafael, at nearby St. Barnabas Hospital.

"It's a terrible poignancy that Donnette's son's birthday will now coincide with the day his mother died," Bloomberg said in a statement.

Sanz's sister, Beverly, said the baby was named Sean Michael.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2008...6462511-ap.html

[Yiyi and Chris 0]

"It's a terrible poignancy that Donnette's son's birthday will now coincide with the day his mother died,"!!!!! How sad!

[chnst 6]

what a freak accident... I just lost a friend in Germany who was pregnant. She was on the highway when a car went through the guardrails in the opposite lane. A piece of guardrail hit her in the head and she died but they saved her baby via c-section.

[Ontarkie 14,117]

so sad

[Ggreen 12]

20 suspensions...driving without licence.. . i wish good health for the baby.