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Good Samaritans help save unconscious baby on Florida expressway

Traffic came to a grinding halt Thursday afternoon on the Dolphin Expressway as a woman fled her car desperate for help to save a baby.

A five-month-old baby is in stable condition today, thanks to the lifesaving efforts of complete strangers.

On Thursday afternoon, westbound traffic on Miami's Dolphin Expressway was at a standstill. A woman on the side of the road started screaming for help. She was holding an unconscious baby.

Pamela Rauseo, 37, was begging drivers to help her 5-month-old nephew, Sebastian de la Cruz. He wasn't breathing.

"I pulled over on the left, and I jumped to the back to check up on him, and he was out, he was sleeping, and I touched him to stimulate him. I got no response, so I took him out of his car seat and he was completely limp and turning purple. I tried to call 911, but I was just so nervous my hands wouldn't function," she told CNN.

It wasn't long before a team of compassionate strangers gathered to help revive the little boy.

Lucila Godoy, 34, left her toddler son in the car to help Rauseo perform CPR.

"I don't know how I remembered what to do … I just knew I couldn't let him die," Rauseo told ABC News.

Miami Herald photographer Al Diaz, stuck in traffic behind Rauseo, got out of his vehicle, too. He jogged through traffic to find more help.

"She popped out of that car, as a driver, that moment is frozen on my mind, and screaming for help, and it was fortunate that when I went looking for help, help was right there," said Diaz.

Diaz found Sweetwater police officer Amauris Bastidas.

Bastidas followed Diaz to the scene where he took over for Godoy, who was performing chest pumps on the tiny child while Rauseo breathed into Sebastian's mouth.

"There was a female crying on the floor. At that time I didn’t realize she had a baby. The baby was lying on her lap. She told me, 'Help me, please help me. The baby's not responding.' The baby was pale, blue in colour," Bastidas told CBS4.

"I lifted him up in the air and moved him up and down," Bastidas told the Miami Herald. "He started breathing and crying."

Then Sebastian stopped breathing a second time.

The group continued to perform CPR until he started breathing again.

Diaz captured the life-saving scene on camera.

"It's a great thing that people actually stopped to help," Diaz told CBS4.

"As a photojournalist you want to capture these images, but as a human being you want to get help," Diaz told the Daily News on Thursday night.

Two members of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue's hazardous materials crew were also stuck in traffic. Captain Anthony Trim and Lieutenant Alvaro Tonanez, each in separate cars, heard the emergency call over the radio, jumped out of their vehicles and rushed to the scene.

"The aunt gave him the baby," Trim said of Tonanez. "He did a quick check and made sure the baby’s airway was open."

The two men arrived on the scene moments before Miami Fire Rescue arrived and rushed the baby to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Pediatrics unit.

"Everybody got there in seconds, it seemed," Diaz said.

According to a hospital spokeswoman, the baby was listed in stable condition on Thursday evening.

Born prematurely, Sebastian has respiratory issues.

"I was just thinking about my sister, like, 'I can't, I can't let this happen, I can't, I can't. She trusted me with her baby and I can't let this baby die on me,'" Rauseo told WSVN.