Covering Race and Mental Health

Rare indeed is the news story that sensitively describes the strange, scary things that can occur at the intersection of race and mental illness. But, thanks to a pair of conscientious writers at the Boston Globe, the story of a troubled black woman who gave birth while standing on a crowded subway train turned out to be one of the more gripping, poignant news stories I’ve read in a long time. Appearing on the Globe's front page on Jul. 31, the story by C. Kalimah Redd, a Globe correspondent, and Mac Daniel, the Globe's transportation writer, described the bizarre case of a suburban Boston woman named Joyce Judge.

On the morning of Jul. 30, Judge, 42, awakened feeling sick in the motel south of Boston where she was living with her two children. She left them -- a 15 year-old and an 11 year-old -- and boarded a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority subway train bound for Boston. As the train neared a stop just inside the city, Judge let out a moan. To the astonishment of passengers, Judge stood looking out of the train window and holding a handrail while a full-term baby boy dropped from between her legs, hit the floor of the subway car, and rolled several feet, "stopping when he bumped up against the next row of seats," according to the Globe story. Judge scooped up the baby, tied the umbilical chord in a knot, and wrapped the baby in a silk scarf. In another shocking detail of the story, Judge "cradled the baby in one arm and grabbed the handrail with the other and continued to ride the T and stare out the [train] window," according to passenger Chris Chin, who told The Boston Globe that he stood four feet from Judge. "Either she didn’t know it happened, or she didn't want to acknowledge it," Chin said.

The story is front-loaded with all the details you need, short but vivid descriptions of Judge before and during the birth, the passengers' reactions, and the chaotic scene that unfolded among police, MBTA officials and passersby as the woman, incredibly, leapt from the train after it stopped, clutched the baby and waved off passengers' offers of help as she "hustled" out of the station and onto busy Columbia Road. "It was simply surreal," passenger Bill Mahoney told the newspaper. Another witness, Robert Busby, was in the train station when he saw Judge drop her placenta as she ran by. "She just literally picked it up with her hand and put it in some kind of bag she was carrying, and this was in mid-stride," Busby said. "It was the craziest thing I've ever seen."

By the story's end, I decided I had to speak to the reporters who had written it. Not only had the writers excellently presented a chronological account of the incident and the necessary details they also presented them in stark yet unbiased language. Moreover, the story included a bedside interview with Judge, and quotes from her worried relatives. For a "first day" story, it was rich with details and depth. How on earth did the reporters get the interview with Judge, who had been stopped by police blocks from the train station, and taken to Boston Medical Center? How did they track down the passengers who had watched the incident unfold?

I phoned Mac Daniel and Kalimah Redd to find out. What they described is a textbook study of solid, aggressive, run-and-gun reporting overlaid with a refreshing appreciation of restraint, and healthy doses of integrity and compassion. In total, the story is "both sad and happy," Daniel told me. "It is sad that an obviously troubled woman had to go through what she did. But, at the same time, its happy in the sense that she's got a beautiful baby boy, and its happy that she's getting some help," Daniel said.

For his part, Daniel used technology to help track down passengers who had witnessed the incident: by mid-day, he posted a note on the Globe's website, globe.com, asking to hear from anyone who had been on the train where Judge had given birth. Within hours, Daniel said, he was inundated with e-mails and phone calls from people who had been on the same subway car. After quizzing the respondents carefully to make sure that they had, in fact, witnessed the incident, Daniel began shaping his story.