What really got me about the whole story was what it proved, right out there where anybody could see it, pure objective truth, that our imaginations are pure and boundless and can take us anywhere that we let them, no matter how much these bodies might fail us, that even if you're born without a right atrium and ventricle in your heart and no spleen and all your organs on the wrong side of your body and are extremely sensitive to the touch and you beat cancer once when you're eleven and then it comes back again when you're thirteen, you can overcome all of that, because you still have the power to do anything, become just who you've always dreamed of being.
“We pried the door off and I brought the child out and lifted her up and said, ‘here’s my prize,'” said Chief Paul Kashmer.
The child was removed safely from the claw machine and suffered no injuries.
“We got inside and sure enough there was the cutest little girl you ever seen, sucking a bink inside a toy machine with all the other toys,” said Kashmer.
Kashmer said the child never cried and even seemed to be enjoying herself.
The new machine will enable the researchers to study in greater detail how the baby moves through the mother’s pelvis and down the birth canal – issues that have long been studied and debated. The hospital’s Institute for Radiology and Obstetrics Clinic will work closely together on the project.
Among other benefits, it should help researchers to understand why about 15 percent of pregnant women need a Caesarian section because the baby does not progress properly into the birth canal.
Closed circuit television operators who witnessed the birth were so marked by the event they witnessed that they tracked the couple down and presented them with a video of the birth.
Mr Sullivan said: "It has to be the ultimate birth video and one which we’ll treasure forever.[...]
In the footage, a motorist in a silver Land Rover is seen pulling in front of the couple's Peugeot and lending Mr Sullivan his mobile phone. The father-to-be called the emergency services who talked him through the birth.
A passing off-duty police officer and a patrol car arrived on the scene and directed traffic around the couple's car.
The Richmans both ran towards the car and Aaron tried to push Melanie into the car, but instead she smashed out the passenger side window with her elbow. Aaron was able to climb inside the vehicle, while Melanie was dragged for a short time before letting go of the outside of the car.
Inside the vehicle, police said, Aaron hit and kicked the driver as he tried to save his child. The beating caused the carjacker to crash the car and then he fled the area on foot.
The greatest design challenge for the group has been resisting standardization. “As soon as you say, ‘You can only use a 4Runner’s headlight,’ the value goes out the window,” Mr. Prestero said. This problem might ultimately determine what aspects of NeoNurture’s approach will translate to mass production.
“Dashboard fans for circulation, signal lights and door chimes for alarms, the battery — those pieces aren’t so difficult to source locally,” Mr. Prestero continued. “A headlight filament might use a different gas, though, and that’s when it gets complicated.”
Whatever form a production version takes, NeoNurture has already posed a compelling — and empowering — argument. “I don’t know where you get a replacement incubator filter in a remote Nepalese village,” Mr. Prestero said, “but you likely can find someone there who can replace a car’s air filter. That’s where this idea really has virtue.”
