by Oren Yaniv and Bill Hutchinson
Firefighters got twice the drama they were expecting Wednesday when they responded to a 911 call from a Harlem woman in labor.
When Firefighters John Behringer and Mike Schneider burst into Pattie Jacob's apartment, she was already cradling one baby in her arms and on the verge of giving birth to another.
"I looked at her, I looked down and she was holding the baby," said Behringer, 38, of Engine 37 in Harlem.
Schneider, 27, said he cut the umbilical cord on Jacob's son, but before he could exhale a sigh of relief, the second infant was on the way."I was crossing my fingers she would make it to the hospital," Schneider said.
Rushed to Harlem Hospital by ambulance, Jacob delivered a daughter, Madison, at 8:08 a.m., 64 minutes after her twin brother, Michael, was born.
Both newborns were placed in incubators but were listed in good condition. "I'm just so happy this is over," the exhausted mom said during a hospital reunion with the firefighters .
Jacob, 34, said her due date wasn't until March 9, but when she woke up yesterday at 5 a.m., she felt something wasn't right.
Her 8-year-old son, Maliq, asked if he should dial 911. Jacob told him no and sent him to school. But alone in her bathroom later, Jacob went into labor.
In excruciating pain, Jacob dialed 911 on her cell phone. The operator instructed her to wrap the baby in towels and assured her help was on the way.
When they reached the apartment building on Convent Ave. near 125th St., Behringer and Schneider did not know Jacob's apartment number. "I heard someone screaming," said Behringer, who tracked the noise to Jacob's second-floor home.
Despite her condition, Jacob managed to walk to the door and opened it. "We just helped her out," Schneider said. "She did all the hard work,"
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