STUART (CBS12) — A pregnant woman was rescued from her sinking car off Interstate 95 — and welcomed a healthy baby girl just hours later, on her own birthday.
Shedly Apollon, 29, was driving to a prenatal massage on Feb. 6 when she began feeling faint. She tried to pull over near the I-95 weigh station west of Stuart, but her car veered off the road and plunged into a pond.
“Immediately, I tried to open my driver-side door and the passenger door, but they were both submerged,” Apollon recalled from her hospital bed at HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce. “I was banging on the window like, ‘Someone save me,’ because normal people — they just drive by and record instead of assist.”
But one person did stop.
Logan Hayes was on his way to work when he noticed the car sinking fast. He jumped into the water, ripped open a door as water climbed toward Apollon’s toes, and pulled her out — swimming both of them to safety.
“When he swung that door open, I was just like, ‘Okay, you are an angel. You came out of nowhere,” she said.
Apollon was rushed to Lawnwood Hospital, where doctors performed an emergency C-section. Her daughter, Ivory Sully, born at 33 weeks, was admitted to the NICU.
On Monday, mother and daughter shared skin-to-skin contact for the first time — a moment Apollon described as overwhelming and healing.
“Having her hands touch me and feeling her heartbeat — it was surreal,” she said. “Today showed me I can be strong because she’s fighting as well.”
Apollon says she and baby Ivory now share a birthday — a bond she believes was meant to be.
“We can share this with her one day. I can laugh with her. Now that we share a birthday, our bond is tighter than ever.”
Her fiancé, Woodly Sully, says the family is counting its blessings.
“I got to see both of my girls,” he said. “She came out with no scratches, and the only way I can explain this is — that’s God.”
As for her car?
“I was upset about the car taking a swim,” Apollon laughed, “but now they can have it. I have my baby girl.”
WPEC-CBS12 is a news partner of the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
