Rescue In The Time Of COVID-19 : Above and Beyond

" Miss Lira, my name is Zully -- I'm Junior's mom. I need your help."
"Please call my husband and help him and my son. I'm at the hospital, and I'm going to have an emergency C-section."
Zully, Guatemalan immigrant, COVID patient

Photo: John Moore / Getty Images

"I'm exhausted, yes, but it's very rewarding. Neysel is a preemie, so he needs to be fed every two hours or so, and he loves to stay awake most of the night."
"But I am honoured that the family wanted me to help."
"More than anything, I would love for Zully to have him back and hold him in her arms on Mother's Day. But that may not be possible, so I am happy to do what I can."
"My hope for this family is that they'll soon have their baby home and be able to hold him in their arms."
Luciana Lira, 42, elementary school teacher, Stamford, Connecticut

Luciana Lira teachers English as a second language as an elementary school teacher. Now, under lockdown in the U.S., she is teaching remotely. She keeps in regular touch with her students online. And she often exchanges messages with the parents of her students. On March 31 she received a call from the mother of one of her students she had once met at a parent-teacher conference. The mother conveyed the information that she was in respiratory distress with COVID-19 and was about to undergo a Caesarean section to deliver her second child. Her 7-year-old son is one of Ms.Lira's students.

As recent immigrants from Guatemala, the family who asked that their last name be withheld, had no community support and turned in desperation to their son's grade-school teacher. Ms. Lira obliged by contacting the husband Marvin, and from him was given permission to communicate with medical staff at the hospital to act as an intermediary for the family. Zully was monitored for two days and then delivered the baby, named Neysel, five weeks early, weighing 5 pounds, 13 ounces and placed in the newborn intensive care unit for observation while his mother was placed on a ventilator, in a coma for over three weeks.

Photo: John Moore / Getty Images

The young student, Junior, and his stepfather were tested with the understanding that they could quarantine at home, if the tests were positive. What would become of the baby, though was a quandary. Ms. Lira called the husband: "I know that you don't know me, and I don't know you, but if you want, I can take the baby with me until after you are tested", she told him. "Then you can come and get your son from me." The response was "I'm going to trust you", from the father.

At which, Ms.Lira bought a car seat, a bassinet, diapers and formula, then drove to Stamford Hospital to collect the baby. She prepared herself to begin looking after a newborn, to share living quarters with herself, her husband and her own eleven-year-old son, while the baby's mother was intubated in intensive care and the father and young boy were isolated at home. The Lira family began a new routine of feedings and diapers with Luciana absorbed in daytime caregiving for a baby and teaching ESL online classes for kindergarten through to Grade 5 at the Hart Magnet Elementary School in Stamford.

Weeks later, Zully, released from hospital returned home to recover from the novel coronavirus, along with her husband and her son. Too weak to walk unaided, much less care for a newborn, it was decided to leave the baby in the care of the school teacher. As long, promised Luciana, as might be necessary. And that is precisely what is happening, with the help of her husband Alex, 45, and their eleven-year-old son Christopher.

Photo: John Moore / Getty Images