Two undergraduates may be training to save lives at sea, but this week they delivered one on land.

On the way to a Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) session, Domenico A. Pellegrini ’09 and Jack D. Reed ’08 found and facilitated a woman giving birth in a van parked near 16 Garden Street early Tuesday morning. The students said they remained with the mother, who was alone, and newborn child until rescue crews arrived. Paramedics transported the woman and baby to the Cambridge City Hospital shortly before 6 a.m., according to Cambridge Fire Department Deputy Chief James F. Burns.

Pellegrini and Reed left from the quad on their bikes in the early morning to attend Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) classes at MIT.

Pedaling into Cambridge Commons, they heard loud cries for help from behind and immediately dialed 911, according to the students.

They followed the “hysterical” screams and spotted the woman, a 31-year-old black female, propped up in the backseat with her legs apart to facilitate the delivery, Pellegrini said.

While Reed spoke with the police dispatcher, Pellegrini approached the woman in the dark and fumbled to switch on the lights inside the car. The students said they witnessed the woman catching the emerging baby in her bare hands. Pelligrini then took off his sweater to swaddle the infant girl.

“She was yelling, ‘Oh my baby girl! Help my baby girl!’...I kept telling her that help is on the way,” he said. “She was rattled, just freaked out.”

Pellegrini added that the infant came out headfirst and that there seemed to be no complications with the actual birth. The woman held the baby closely until the paramedics arrived, according to Reed.

Following the birth, the woman handed over keys to the van, frantically directing Pellegrini to drive her to the hospital. Soon after, the students spotted a Cambridge Police Department cruiser driving up Garden Street and flagged it down..

“She was much calmer after she saw the first police officer,” Reed said, noting that the woman had been screaming frantically up until that point.

At 5:42 a.m., a fire engine and rescue team from the Cambridge Fire Department arrived at the scene along with a professional ambulance, Burns said. The students recalled paramedics placing the baby on the stretcher and giving her oxygen.

“The baby was tiny...the [oxygen] mask covered the entire baby’s head,” Reed said.

The hospital could not release information about the condition of the mother or child due to patient privacy regulations established by the Health Information Protection Act.

The two undergraduates said they ran into the woman by coincidence and did not play a significant role in the delivery.

“We were there for moral support. We didn’t know what to do,” Pellegrini said.

Reed said there were no other witnesses before the authorities arrived and that he was surprised that no one in the neighboring apartments came to her aid.

“It was amazing how we went from barely being awake, to running into a frantic situation,” said Reed, who was born in the back of an ambulance. “I just hope I don’t ever have to see another childbirth unless it’s my kid.”

—Staff writer Ying Wang can be reached at yingwang@fas.harvard.edu.