Kristina Ripatti beats the odds again
Back in my It's a Crime days, I had the pleasure of working with Hans Gutknecht on a series on LAPD Officers Kristina Ripatti and Tim Pearce. She was shot and paralyzed stopping an armed robber in South LA back in June of 2006 and we watched them rebuild their lives together.
We found ourselves back out with them on Wednesday for a very different, very joyous reason. Here's the beginning:
TORRANCE - The doctors and nurses gathered around Kristina Ripatti, waiting and hoping for a miracle.
As a retired police officer, she'd spent plenty of time in hospitals in the past year and a half, recovering from a bullet to the spine suffered in the line of duty.
This was different. She could feel nothing below her chest and her once powerful body was limp.
"Push!" the doctor growled.
They had a scalpel and a suction machine at the ready in case something went wrong.
Ripatti bore down with all the force she could in her abdomen. Long dormant muscles began to work. A tiny head appeared.
At 4:37 p.m. today, the paralyzed ex-cop gave birth to a blue-eyed, black-haired, 5-pound-8-ounce, 19-inch, healthy baby. Nurses swabbed and swaddled him and the family went back up to her private room at the Little Company of Mary Hospital.
Check out the rest here. I wish I could go into more detail, but deadline's got me caught up right now. I can tell you, however, that there's never been work I've been prouder to do in my career than this series. It may not be my best work, it may be too long, I might have been able to tell it better if I had more (or less), but I can truly say that this was a story that mattered. I hope you'll enjoy it, as well.
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