At midnight, on March 5, 2000 - after 12 hours of constant pain, the 40-year-old mother of six sat down on a wooden bench, drank from a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and used a 6-inch kitchen knife to cut open her stomach.
Using the light of a dim bulb, Ines cut through her skin in a diagonal line from across her stomach to below her naval (a typical C-section incision is well below the naval). After operating on herself for an hour, she reached inside her uterus to pull out her baby boy. Then she severed the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors and passed out.

When she regained consciousness, she wrapped a sweater around her bleeding abdomen and asked her 6-year-old son, Benito, to run for help. Several hours later, the village health assistant, found Ines alert and lying beside her live baby. He sewed her 7-inch incision with an available needle and thread.

Describing her experience in her native Zapotec language, Ines said, “I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. If my baby was going to die, then I decided I would have to die, too. But if he was going to grow up, I was going to see him grow up, and I was going to be with my child. I thought that God would save both our lives.”

Ines Ramirez is recognized internationally as a modern miracle - believed to be the only woman known to have performed a successful Caesarean section on herself.