LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada Highway Patrol trooper with a history of heroism is drawing new praise for helping a mother give birth to a daughter baby in the passenger seat of a pickup truck just outside a Las Vegas hospital.
Trooper Joseph DellaBella was credited with cradling newborn Bianca Velasquez-Cartagena after she arrived Thursday morning at Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center.
The highway patrol said Friday that DellaBella was on-duty and leaving the hospital after a crash investigation.
He unwrapped the umbilical cord from the baby's neck and helped her breathe her first breaths while the dad and a security guard notified hospital personnel.
Bianca and her mom, Brenda Valasquez-Cartagena, are now healthy at the hospital.
DellaBella and his wife Trissa DellaBella, who is also a trooper, were credited in March with the off-duty rescue of several people from a burning apartment building in Las Vegas.