Ray’s Ray of Hope – Jersey Girl Gives Coat to New York Woman Who Gives Birth on Sidewalk

It was a cold day this past Monday when Isabel Williams, a Pitman native now living and working in the big city, was on her coffee break on the Upper East Side and noticed a commotion in the street not far from where she works.

As any normally curious person would have done, she went over to take a look; and there to her surprise was a woman sprawled out on the corner of 68th and 3rd having just given birth to a baby girl.

So while a good many of the onlookers stood around wondering what to do, Isabel went into action – calling for an ambulance, then taking off her scarf and flannel shirt to cover the baby; and finally her coat to wrap the mother.

According to this:

It seemed like it would be a normal lunch break for Isabel Williams on Monday afternoon in the upper east side of New York City.

But just a couple of blocks away from where she works on 68th Street and 3rd Avenue — Gracious Homes, a home and decor store — she saw a big crowd of people.

“I was on a coffee run for all my co-workers, and saw the commotion and initially thought someone got hit by a car,” said Williams, a Pitman native who now lives in New York.

She said she was about to just keep walking when she got closer and realized what was really happening.

“I saw someone on the ground, and then there was a cab next to her, and I realized the woman didn’t get hit,” she said Wednesday evening. “The woman was actually holding a newborn baby.”

Everyone around her seemed to be in shock, and the ambulance hadn’t been called yet, she said. The people started to give their scarves to the mother, but she noticed the baby was unprotected.

“So I called the ambulance, took off my sweater and flannel shirt and gave them to the mother to wrap up the baby, then gave the mother my Michael Kors peacoat.”

She jokes it was freezing the second she stepped outside, but said with the thought of the baby getting hypothermia, giving her jacket was the least she could do.

“This is something that just comes natural to people — to do things like this,” Williams said. "And it wasn't just me, there were four or five other people helping the mother in any way they could."

The parents, Polly and Cian McCourt, named their daughter Ila Isabelle in honor of the 20-year-old.

“I’m really humbled by it,” she said. “It’s such an honor and an incredible thing.”
The parents were looking to thank Williams, who gave them her number, but they lost it in the commotion.

If it were to ever happen again, she would do the same thing.

“I think in the long run, in the grand scheme of things, it’s really just people helping other people,” Williams said.

Mackenzie Pierpont, Williams’ best friend, also a Pitman native, is proud of her friend.
“It doesn’t really surprise me that she would do something like this,” Pierpont said. “She’s so selfless and caring. And I think it’s a really positive thing she did.”

We oftentimes hear of how uncaring folks in the big city can be.

And while Isabel is city folk now, she showed her big Jersey heart by braving the cold so that a mom and her newborn didn’t have to succumb to the elements on that crowded street corner.

Pitman’s (and now New York’s) Isabel Williams – today’s Ray’s Ray of Hope.

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