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Baby's rescue: desperate toss, amazing catch

By wire services
Published December 16, 2005

NEW YORK - With flames raging behind her, Tracinda Foxe desperately held her infant son out the window of her third-floor New York apartment, hoping to get air back into his tiny lungs and praying help would arrive.

Then, as a crowd gathered below her window, Foxe did the only thing she could think of to save her son: She dropped him.

"I said, "God, please save my son,' " said Foxe, 30. "I prayed that someone would catch him and save his life."

One-month-old Eric Guzman fell 30 feet through the frigid morning air - and landed safely in the arms of Felix Vazquez, a city Housing Authority supervisor.

"I didn't think - I just wanted to get him," said Vazquez, who plays catcher for his employer's baseball team."I just reacted."

The catch was recorded by a surveillance camera.

Firefighters were then able to rescue Foxe, who was reunited with her uninjured baby and later gave Vazquez a tearful hug.

The fire began about 8:30 a.m., minutes after Foxe returned to her apartment from dropping off her two older children - Raymond, 11, and Alexis, 9 - at school.

Cradling Eric in her arms, she drifted off to sleep only to awaken as smoke filled her apartment.

"I thought about running for the front door but I couldn't make it," she said. "I closed the (bedroom) door, but then me and my baby were trapped."

Trying to save her child, Foxe squeezed the newborn through the window's metal guards so the infant could gulp in fresh air.

Working nearby, Vazquez and several other bystanders hopped a fence and prepared to make a desperate catch.

Screaming "Save my son, save my son," Foxe dropped the child to Vazquez.

"He wasn't crying, so I gave him mouth-to-mouth," said Vazquez, 39, who worked as a lifeguard when he was a teenager. "I felt like it was one of my own - I have three - and when he started crying, I felt even better."

Moments later, firefighters burst into the apartment and rescued Foxe. Mother and child were treated at a hospital and released.

Information from the New York Daily News and Associated Press was used in this report.

[Last modified December 16, 2005, 00:55:10]