Published: November 20, 2008 11:01 pm      

Baby delivered by HPD officer

A chance crossing of paths on the streets of Huntsville late Sunday night eventually lead to a Huntsville Police officer helping to deliver a baby in the parking lot of a convenience store.

At approximately 11:20 p.m. on Sunday, Officer Justin Lehman of the HPD was patrolling the area of 11th Street when he passed a fast-moving car with its hazard lights flashing near the intersection of 11th and Sycamore Avenue.

“It was late, and traffic was light, so I figured they had some reason to be moving that fast because their hazards were on,” Lehman said. “So I left them alone.”

Lehman continued driving in the direction of Highway 19. Several minutes later he heard a medical call go out describing a delivery in progress at Zipp’s, a convenience store at the intersection of 11th Street and Sycamore Avenue.

Believing this call to be related to the vehicle he had seen earlier. Lehman doubled back and arrived at the Zipp’s parking lot moments later.

When he arrived, he found the passenger door of the vehicle open. A man was standing outside the car, leaning in the passenger side, and a woman was sitting in the passenger seat in the process of giving birth.

“I could see the baby’s head when I walked up,” Lehman said. “Its head was out, its shoulders were out, and the baby was all but delivered when I got there.”

The man, who identified himself as the husband of the pregnant woman, was communicating with 911 dispatchers via cellular phone at the time of Lehman’s arrival.

“Dispatch was doing a good job of talking him through what to do,” Lehman said. “But then he freaked out a little bit because he saw that the umbilical cord was tangled around the baby’s midsection, and he wasn’t sure what to do about that. So I stepped in.”

Lehman held the baby’s upper body and guided both mother and child through the rest of the birth. During the delivery, he asked the father to unlace one of his shoes.

“I asked him to give me his bootlaces so I could tie off the cord,” he said. “So I took the bootlace and tied off the cord with one hand while I held the baby in my other hand.”

While Lehman worked to clamp the umbilical cord, with an ambulance still en route, Huntsville-Walker County EMS Supervisor Kevin Bates responded to the scene to aid Lehman.

Bates helped to remove the umbilical cord and provided suction to the clear the infant’s airway.

When the ambulance arrived, Lehman and Bates stabilized both mother and child and transported them to Huntsville Memorial Hospital.

The infant, though born more than a month premature, was healthy.

Lt. Wes Altom of the HPD Uniformed Services commended Lehman for his presence of mind.

“He was intuitive enough to know that it was a medical emergency, so when they stopped, he assisted them,” Altom said.

“I think it went about as good as it could have gone for giving birth to a baby in a car,” Lehman said.