Crash Kills Mother : Birth Occurs After Death

An infant girl was delivered by emergency Caesarean section Friday afternoon, more than half an hour after her mother was killed in a downtown freeway accident.

The baby, who weighed 3 pounds and 7 ounces, was in extremely critical condition Friday night in the pediatric intensive care unit at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, a spokeswoman said.

A coroner’s deputy identified the mother as Evanthia Makali, 34, of Los Angeles.

The baby was delivered after the woman--five months pregnant--died of “massive head injuries” at the scene of the midday Hollywood Freeway accident.

But a fetal heartbeat was detected at the scene and CHP officers decided to have paramedics take the woman’s body to the hospital on the chance that the infant might survive, CHP Sgt. Bruce Wiedmer said.

“It was unusual,” said Dr. John Kudirka, senior resident in the emergency medicine department. Doctors kept oxygen flowing and cardiac massage going when the woman was brought in.

An obstetrician and a neo-natalogist arrived “within minutes” and while “the child was a little blue when it came out” and “pretty sluggish,” by the time the newborn was taken to intensive care, after medication and oxygen “the heart rate was 130, close to normal,” Kudirka said.

CHP Officer Bart Arechiga said the 11:50 a.m. accident was apparently triggered when traffic began slowing on the southbound Hollywood Freeway above the Harbor Freeway in downtown Los Angeles.

Witnesses told CHP investigators that Makali, who was driving in the fast lane in a 1985 Jeep Cherokee with a passenger, Gabriella Hegyi, 28, of Regal Park, N.Y., “apparently hit the brakes real hard and swerved to the left.” Her car hit the center divider, rolled completely over and landed back on its wheels, Arechiga said.

The pregnant woman died of massive head injuries when she was tossed partly out the driver’s-side window and her head struck the center divider, Arechiga said. Hegyi suffered a laceration on the back of the head, he added.

Paramedics who took Makali to the hospital for the Caesarean delivery “did an outstanding job,” Arechiga said.

The pregnant woman was not wearing a seat belt, paramedics told Arechiga. It was uncertain whether Hegyi was wearing a seat belt.

“I think it (a belt) would have kept her inside the car; obviously she didn’t stay in the seat,” Arechiga said. “It’s hard to say--she might not have had a seat belt on because she was pregnant.”

Ironically, he said, pregnant women he sees on the road sometimes tell officers that they do not wear seat belts because “ ‘If I have to hit the brakes hard, it might injure the baby.’ ”

Makali’s husband, Vasili, arrived at the hospital Friday afternoon, but declined to talk to reporters.