() — A US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent met with a baby girl he helped deliver at the US-Mexico border six years ago.
It was the cold winter morning of December 8, 2016, when Agent J. Lott was in the middle of a typically busy day at the San Ysidro port of entry, a major border crossing between the United States and Mexico, near Tijuana and San Diego.
As the lanes throughout the port were packed with travelers and agents inspecting their vehicles, Lott received an emergency call about a woman in distress.
Trained as an emergency medical technician, Lott arrived at the scene and discovered a pregnant woman giving birth inside her vehicle, the agency said in a news release issued last Thursday.
“I just trusted my training,” Lott said. “I knew that if I stayed calm, the mother, father and everyone around me would stay calm. Although deep down I didn’t want to fail them.”
US Customs and Border Protection agent J. Lott met with a baby girl he helped give birth on the US-Mexico border more than five years ago.
Baby Alexa Garcia was born breech, meaning her head was positioned to come out last, adding danger to the pressure of giving birth amidst the chaos.
After birth, the emergency was complicated when they realized that Alexa was not breathing.
“He was blue, he wasn’t breathing and he wasn’t responding,” Lott said. “I quickly gave her chest compressions, and after about five or six, she started crying. She was already on her knees, and I just collapsed. I remember him saying to myself, ‘Just keep breathing baby, just keep breathing please.’”
Two months before her sixth birthday, Alexa was reunited with Lott, but this time under much more relaxed circumstances.
Agent J. Lott and his wife met with Alexa Garcia and her family at the San Ysidro port of entry to exchange gifts.
“There wasn’t a dry eye in the room” at the San Ysidro port of entry when Alexa jumped in, smiling as she walked over to Lott for a hug, according to the release. She was accompanied by her parents and two of her brothers, while Lott was accompanied by his wife. Both families shared memories of that fateful day.
They also exchanged gifts. Lott received a framed photograph of himself holding Alexa on the day of her birth, and Alexa received a teddy bear in a police uniform. CBP.
“I believe that God put an angel in our path that day, that angel saved the life of my wife and my baby,” Alexa’s father said during the meeting.
