Infant Dies In Father's Arms After Mom Dies In Car Accident

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. – An infant died in in his father's arms after an emergency delivery following a fatal accident involving the child's mother in North Carolina Tuesday morning.

The wreck happened at 7:49 a.m. at County Line Road and Lewis Farm Road, according to the North Carolina Highway Patrol.

Highway patrol said 24-year-old Rebecca Williams was traveling south on N.C. 216 when she ran off the road, over-corrected, crossed the center line and was hit in the passenger side door by SUV traveling north.

A trooper nearby working a minor wreck nearby was flagged down and told about the wreck. He left that scene and arrived at the County Line Road accident, according to the highway patrol official.

The trooper said he saw Williams slumped over the wheel. He unbuckled her and when he did, he saw she was pregnant. He removed her from the vehicle and started CPR. Another trooper arrived on scene and they took turns administering CPR, according to the highway patrol official.

These were really heroic efforts by a group of troopers and a nurse who happened to be near the scene, to try to get oxygen to the unborn baby after his mother died at the scene.

Highway patrol officers hoped they could save him-- they knew they had to try.

"Everyone out there has children-- all the troopers involved, it's more intense when we deal with a situation that involves babies," Trooper Brian Huffstickler said.

Williams, who was nine months pregnant, was on her way home from work, and was on the phone when she ran off the road and crashed into another car.

"She was obviously pregnant. She was nine months pregnant, she had already passed, we had already come to that conclusion but our main focus was to keep working on her to get her to wherever we could get her transported in hopes that we could deliver the baby."

The first trooper on the scene was actually working another wreck just down the road when a passerby flagged him down – that's why he was able to start CPR so quickly.

"Once he realized she was pregnant and more than likely was not going to be able to save her life, the main focus was to continue CPR in hopes that we could save the baby."

They rushed Williams to a nearby hospital where they delivered baby Riley by C-section. Riley was then flown to Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte.

"He's not doing well, no ability to breathe on his own, taking a turn for the worse. It's not the outcome that we wanted; we were really optimistic hoping the baby would do well and start breathing on its own-- we knew it was a serious crash. The baby took a hard impact inside the mother," Huffstickler said.

By 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, KSDK-TV's sister station WCNC learned the baby had been taken off life support and died within the hour, in his daddy's arms.

A nurse who works for Cleveland Regional also drove by and stopped to help with the CPR, according to highway patrol official.