As Mexico commemorates the one-year anniversary of the 2017 earthquake, one baby reaches his first year of life.
On September 19, 2017, as millions of Mexicans dealt with a devastating earthquake, Jessica Mendoza Segura was about to give birth to her baby boy. Just before she jumped into the bathtub, where she chose to deliver her baby through an alternative birthing service provided by Sanatorio Durango, the building began to shake.
“I didn’t know what was happening, but I told everyone to calm down because I knew if we did something wrong, I wouldn’t be able to meet my baby,” Mendoza told Yahoo México. Everything around her broke, dust fell, and people in the room screamed. She and her mom, along with her OBGYN and husband, were evacuated after the tremors stopped.
They set out to find a secure place to have the baby, which turned out to be on the corner of the streets Durango and Sonora. In the Roma Norte area of Mexico City, Mendoza delivered her baby, Iñaki, in the midst of a national emergency. Police successfully created a makeshift bed with blankets, and Mendoza gave birth with no anesthesia or surgical intervention. Mendoza later told El Siglo de Torreón that she thought the birth was a miracle and credited her maternal instinct to surviving the situation.
The 2017 earthquake in Central Mexico had magnitude of 7.1, the epicenter of which was in Puebla. More than 300 people died as a result of the earthquake, while another 6,000 sustained injuries. In the midst of tragedy, heroic stories like Mendoza’s emerged.
A few days ago, the family celebrated the baby boy’s first birthday, according to Yahoo, all the while they remembered the chaotic delivery that brought them Iñaki. Take a look below.