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NYC subway rider recalls birth of baby girl born on W train: 'Nobody approached the woman'
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Feb 14, 2025
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MTA/Patrick Cashin
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Feb 14, 2025
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Susan Jung had just boarded a W train at the Times Square station when she heard a commotion.
A mom had just given birth, and her naked, wailing newborn was on the floor of the train car. Riders rushed off the train as it pulled into Herald Square.
“Nobody approached the woman who was on her stomach – and the baby who's on the floor,” said Jung, 35. “My first instinct was, ‘Oh my God, I need to get this baby off the subway floor.’ She was flailing her arms and just crying.”
Jung was captured in video holding the baby – affectionately nicknamed “Baby W” – in a red blanket. In an interview Friday with Gothamist, she revealed new details about the episode, including the new mom’s stunning request: cut the umbilical cord.
“ She wanted us to cut the cord and she kept yelling for us to cut the cord,” Jung said.
Jung recalled another rider produced a pocket knife. A man then volunteered to do it, dousing the blade with hand sanitizer. But the new mom – later identified as a woman who had been reported missing in Florida – didn’t want that man cutting the umbilical cord, Jung said. So the duty fell to her.
The mother of two said her only medical experience was sewing her brother’s stitches and once popping her daughter’s nail with a paperclip after a finger started swelling. Nevertheless, she thought through best practices for post-natal care.
“I made sure to give it good force so that it would just be a quick thing,” Jung said. “And I wanted to make sure that I wasn't cutting close to either the mom or the baby.”
Mother and daughter were taken to Bellevue Hospital in good condition, according to MTA officials. But there were indications the mother’s journey to the W train on Wednesday morning had been troubled.
She was identified in news reports as Jenny Saint Pierre, 25, of Hallandale Beach, Florida.
Grace Mariot, a spokesperson for the Hallandale Beach Police, said Saint Pierre had been reported missing in September after family hadn't seen her for weeks. Police found her four days later in Miami. She was four months pregnant and told police she didn’t want to go home, according to the spokesperson.
Efforts to reach Saint Pierre and her family were unsuccessful.
The two mothers didn’t speak much during the brief ordeal, although Jung recalled Saint Pierre asked for food and a Pepsi.
“ You could obviously tell that she had been living off the streets for some time,” Jung said.
Another rider on the W train, Brianna Brown, took a short video after the baby was born and corroborated Jung’s account.
“ As a typical New Yorker, things happen on the train so often that you don't really look and think something crazy is really about to happen,” Brown told Gothamist. “Maybe she fell over because she's tired. She's hungover and something like that. I wasn't aware that she was pregnant at the time. So I continue just listening to my music and everything.”
When Brown saw the baby, she was at a loss for words.
“You're just commuting and somebody would just have a baby on the train,” she said. “It’s just so random and it's so weird.”
As for Jung, she didn’t stick around after police and paramedics arrived. She crossed the platform and got on a train to meet her husband for lunch at home. She’d ordered Jersey Mike’s subs and was ready to eat.
She said she learned one lesson from the experience.
“ I definitely regret cutting the cord,” she said. “I talked to a few of my friends who are medical professionals. They're like, ‘You know, next time you deliver a baby, you can, you can just wait to cut the cord.’ And I'm like, ‘Oh, yeah, I'll keep that in mind for the next time.’”
Tagged
manhattan
transportation
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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