Rasheida Colon was almost 8 months pregnant, when she developed complications from Placenta previa while shopping at The Rhoades Garden, a flower and garden center in North Wales.

Placenta previa is a pregnancy complication where the placenta covers the opening to the cervix. The condition can cause heavy bleeding and threaten the life of the mother and child.

Both staff and other customers came to her aid very quickly and helped save their lives, writes Alan Yu for WHYY.

Colon was shopping for plants when she noticed she had started to bleed heavily. She turned to the other people in the store at the time for help. She told them that she was 36, pregnant and had placenta previa.

“I was even shouting out my blood type just in case I needed to get a blood transfusion,” she said. “I just kept saying, ‘Please, just save my baby.’”

Someone called 911 and asked her which hospital she wanted to go to. They gave her blanket and tried to make her as comfortable as possible until the ambulance arrived.

Colon in the meantime was able to get in touch with the doctor who had delivered her other two children, Dr. Shawn Mattson at Abington Hospital.

Luckily, he happened to be on call that day. Mattson met her at Abington Hospital and determined she needed an emergency C-section. The delivery went well, and mom and baby are both doing well.

“What could have been a really catastrophic outcome actually ended up from an obstetric, an emergency situation, she did really well,” Mattson said, crediting “the total strangers that … came to her rescue … to help her in this very traumatic moment, to help her remain calm and get her safely to a hospital and just like take good care of her.”

Colon said the people in the store were “there at the right place at the right time. They literally saved my life because it could have been so bad.”

Read Colon’s full story at WHYY.

_______________

More on Placenta previa.