Woman gives birth on NYC sidewalk, names daughter after good Samaritan who gave her a coat

On Monday afternoon, 39-year-old Polly McCourt gave birth to her third child: a healthy 7-pound, 6-ounce daughter named Ila.

Ila's birthplace: a Manhattan sidewalk.

"She's a real New Yorker," McCourt said of her baby girl. "She's born on the streets of New York."

The New York Daily News reported that British-born McCourt was at home in her Upper East Side apartment when she started going into labour. She rushed downstairs to hail a cab, but it was too late.

"I was starting to feel worse and worse, and I thought, 'Oh, this is not good,'" McCourt said. "I went downstairs to get a taxi and my water broke, right in the front foyer of the building."

Her apartment building's doorman, Anton Rudovic, quickly came to her aid.

"Anton knew that I was in trouble, so he walked me to the corner of the street to try to get a taxi. And then I went, 'Oh no. She's going to come out,'" she recalled.

"She just came out. I thought I had longer!"

McCourt gave birth on the sidewalk during rush hour surrounded by a crowd of good Samaritans.

Her baby daughter was born in less than 5 minutes. Both mother and child are in good condition.

One of the kind strangers who stopped to help McCourt was a woman named Isabel who gave her the grey coat off her back. McCourt named her daughter Ila Isabelle in her honour.

"She had to go home without a coat on," McCourt said of the woman who stopped to help her. "She gave my husband her phone number and he lost it in the commotion."

"She was meant to be Ila Polly...but now she's Ila Isabelle. We're very happy with it," McCourt told the Mirror.

The New York Daily News tracked down the woman who gave McCourt her coat. Isabel Williams, 20, said she didn't think twice about offering her coat and sweater to wrap the newborn in:

"You just do what you have to do, you know?"

When she told the little girl had been named — in part — after her, she exclaimed, "That's the sweetest thing I ever heard!"

McCourt and her husband plan to thank Isabel in person soon.

McCourt's husband, Cian, had been stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel when his wife went into labour. He arrived on the scene shortly after Ila was born.

"It was a crazy experience," Cian, 40, said of the event some are calling "a miracle on 3rd Avenue."

"My wife was really calm very together...She’s a strong woman."

"Having a baby in a hospital is a miracle. I don't know what to call it when you have a baby in the street. It's incredible," doorman Rudovic told the New York Post.