Rescuer Reunites With Baby She Saved in Wreck

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —  In a quiet hospital room, a young woman cradled her namesake after helping him survive his violent entry into the world.

Trisha Welch had tended to the infant three days earlier when he was ripped from his mother’s womb in a tractor-trailer wreck on a southern Kentucky highway. The trucker named his son Patrick after learning Welch’s name--derived from Patricia.

In a tearful, 10-minute reunion at Kosair Children’s Hospital on Friday, Welch, 18, held baby Patrick and spoke with his father, Furtado P. Boaventura, said hospital spokeswoman Lisa Brosky.

Welch said she and the baby would always share a bond, Brosky said. Boaventura, of Miami, promised her pictures.

Rescue workers credited Welch and her family with saving the baby, who was found on a snowy embankment attached by the umbilical cord to his lifeless mother, 31-year-old Olga Maria Nunes Bera-Cruz. The woman, eight months’ pregnant, was flung through the windshield of a tractor-trailer and had been cut in half.

Welch and her relatives heard the wreck from their home and rushed to the scene, warming the infant with a blanket until ambulances arrived.

Boaventura, 42, who drove the truck, has not spoken to the media. Welch has declined comment.

Well-wishers nationwide have called to express concern.

Strangers also showered Patrick’s family with gifts of toys, clothes and a ham, Brosky said.

Hospital officials did not disclose the baby’s weight or height but said he was in good condition.