A day after a photographer's lens happened to catch a frantic roadside effort by US motorists to save an unconscious infant, the baby's aunt and doctor announced that he was stable.
While still in a critical care unit at Jackson Memorial Hospital on Friday, five-month-old Sebastian de la Cruz managed to share a smile with nurses and doctors.
But on Thursday, little Sebastian, who was born prematurely, was fighting a respiratory infection and crying as his aunt was headed west on the Dolphin Expressway. When he abruptly stopped crying, Pamela Rauseo, 37, of Miami, knew something was wrong.
She stopped her SUV on the expressway just east of 57th Avenue and immediately jumped out screaming that her nephew had stopped breathing.
The baby was turning blue. Traffic soon backed up.
The dramatic scene unfolded before Miami Herald photographer Al Diaz, who also was stuck in traffic. Diaz ran through stalled traffic, shouting to get help. He quickly got the attention of Sweetwater police officer Amauris Bastidas, who rushed to help perform CPR.
Then Diaz grabbed his camera, snapping off a series of pictures, capturing the heroic efforts of Bastidas and others to save little Sebastian.
On Friday morning, news outlets throughout the US and from as far away as Australia, Germany and Brazil covered the story after Diaz's moving photos of Rauseo and other motorists performing CPR on Sebastian hit the internet.
Dr. Juan Solano said Friday that the baby is in stable condition in Jackson's Holtz Pediatric Critical Care unit and is "under very close observation" with no timetable for when he might go home.
"We do think he had been having respiratory issues, which were made worse by a respiratory infection he had recently," he said.
Solano and Dr. Judy Schaechter, interim chief of pediatrics at University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine, said they want to use the intense media focus on the incident to encourage everyone to become certified in CPR.
"Cases like Sebastian's happen every day," Solano said. "It is fortunate it happened with a good result, so you can spread the message that CPR training is important and Sebastian was saved by CPR."
