PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A decade after a mom gave birth to her daughter in a car near Temple University, the family got to reunite with the officers who helped with the delivery.
Wednesday afternoon, 10-year-old Aamanee Young met with Temple officers Justin Busam and Christopher DeRose who delivered her as a baby in the back of a red Cadillac on Broad Street.
“It’s exciting, I’ve always been curious how she is doing,” said Busam just moments before seeing Young. “I mean, it’s been 10 years now. It was a crazy moment that night.”
On August 20, 2013, Kamille Young went to the hospital when she started experiencing some labor pains, but they told her she wasn’t ready to give birth yet, so she went back home.
It wasn’t long before she felt more pain. So Kamille and her husband, Derrick Reid, called Kamille’s best friend Paulette Williamson, who picked them up in her red Cadillac she’d had for less than a year to head back to the hospital.
The group was driving down Broad Street when they spotted Busam and DeRose patrolling near Broad and Oxford streets.
Kamille remembers yelling out, “Get the officers, because it’s kind of hard right now.”
Reid then jumped out of the car while they were in traffic to run over to the officers.
“I started to think, like, ‘Yo, you’re running up on two cops,’ but once [the officer] looked at my face, like, ‘Whoa, he ain’t doing nothing crazy, let me listen to him.’”
Busam recalled seeing Reid speeding out of the car toward them.
“He says to me, ‘My girlfriend’s having a baby.’ We hear that all the time and it’s always ‘You got plenty of time.’ And I’m like, ‘Well the hospital’s down the road,’ and he’s like, ‘No, somebody needs to see, to look at her.’”
Right there, in the back of the Cadillac, Kamille’s water broke and she went into labor.
Busam said he had worked as an EMT and yelled at DeRose to get a towel.
Aamanee was born at 12:42.
Ironically enough, Busam says his badge number at the time was a scramble of her birth time, “2214.”
The story made headlines in 2013 as the “Baby on Broad.”
Now, 10 years later, the group was all smiles as they met once again.
“It sticks with you forever,” says DeRose. “I remember it like it was yesterday. For us to meet them today is great.”
DeRose still works as an officer with Temple University Police but Busam now works at the Southern Chester County Regional Police Department.
Busam says the two of them still keep in touch and, when they do talk, they often reminisce about their times working together. Helping deliver Aamanee is their number one memory and biggest accomplishment yet, they said.
And to see Aamanee all grown up left Busam “kind of speechless,” he said.
Aamanee told the officers she gets A’s and B’s in school and likes to run track.
“Now look at me,” she said. “Still special, got taller, and smarter.”
As for the Cadillac, Williamson says that she had to get the car detailed after the delivery.