Photo: Police at the scene of a Marquette Park shooting where a pregnant woman was killed. Doctors saved her baby.A teenager six months pregnant was shot and killed in the Marquette Park neighborhood on the South Side, but doctors were able to deliver her son, authorities said.
"The baby is pretty much fighting for his life," Debbie Jefferson said of her grandson. "He lost some oxygen and the doctors say there could be health issues. I believe in God, I believe everything is going to be OK."
Jefferson's daughter, Charinez Jefferson, 17, had just gone out to the store Tuesday night and was talking to friends when a car drove up and shots rang out.
"I really don't know what happened," Jefferson said. "She was going to the corner store. She stopped to talk to a guy she knew and someone drove up and opened fire. That's what I've been told. I got down there but they already roped it off. I couldn't get to her.
"I don't believe she was the intended target. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Police said Charinez Jefferson was walking with a group of friends in the 3000 block of West 64th Street at about 10:35 p.m. when a gunman got out of a car and ran up, firing, said News Affairs Officer Ronald Gaines.
"One of them yelled, 'He's got a got a gun,' and everyone scattered, Gaines said.
Jefferson was found lying on the street with gunshot wounds to her body and head, said Fire Department spokesman Will Knight. When paramedics arrived, she was in full cardiac arrest.
Charinez Jefferson was placed on advanced life support and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn as paramedics worked to save the baby, Knight said.
Jefferson was declared dead at 11:11 p.m. at the hospital, but doctors were able to deliver the baby.
"It was a valiant effort by our emergency department team -- the physicians and nurses and therapists -- to deliver the baby successully from a patient who was lethally shot," hospital spokesman Mike Maggio said. "Now, in the case of the baby, all we can do is wait and see."
Charinez Jefferson was entering her 7th month, and the baby weighed 7 pounds and 3 ounces, according to her mother.
This was her second child. Charinez had a boy when she was 16 and he is now 16 months, Jefferson said. "She was a wonderful mother. She was outgoing, she was a leader."
Her daughter was attending classes and intended to resume them after the baby was born. "She would have been a junior this year."
Police said they don't know if Jefferson was the intended target. No arrrests have been made.
