EWEMS Paramedics Deliver Baby in Parking Lot

“No one wants to have a baby in the back of an ambulance. But if you need to? We’re here for it.”

– Sal Bertucci, Essex Windsor EMS Paramedic

Two teams of heroic Essex-Windsor EMS Primary Care Paramedics were indeed ‘there for it’ in Windsor early last month, on March 4.

Riverside residents Taylor Cabana and husband Ryan Rock were expecting their second child when Taylor, a few days overdue, felt her first contraction around 5:30 p.m. Within 10 minutes, her contractions already were less than a minute apart – a stunningly fast progression.

Shortly after 6 p.m. Taylor’s mother called 911, which dispatched two Essex-Windsor EMS ambulances to the Cabana/Rock home, per protocols stipulating one ambulance for each potential patient.

At 6:57 p.m. Taylor delivered her second baby boy – Myles Kenneth Rock – in the back of an ambulance, only a few hundred yards from Windsor Regional Hospital, Metropolitan Campus.

In the Work Authority parking lot.

All this thanks to the quick-thinking, medically sound, procedurally textbook actions of four EWEMS Primary Care Paramedics: Sal Bertucci, Anna Mitrev, Lilly Pattinson and Geoffrey Mackenzie.

Despite his best efforts, hubby Ryan missed nearly all of it. He was still at work when Taylor quickly advanced from exasperation and no contractions, to experiencing those labour pains one right after another. Taylor texted Ryan to come home and her mother phoned 911.

Bertucci and Mitrev are Paramedic partners based at the EWEMS Tecumseh station, on Lesperance Road. Pattinson and Mackenzie are partners based at the East Windsor station on Jefferson Boulevard. Both units were dispatched.

“It was right at the start of our shift,” Mitrev said.

“We didn’t even have our uniforms fully on,” Bertucci said. “I was definitely tripping over myself rushing to the ambulance.”

Both ambulance units arrived at the Cabana/Rock home about 10 minutes later, moments before husband Ryan pulled up.

“Definitely, it was hectic,” Ryan said. “I’m moving cars out of the way so Sal and Anna can back in their ambulance. They were just pulling the gurney out when I got home.”

Once the second ambulance arrived, Pattinson joined Mitrev in the back of her and Bertucci’s ambulance, to help tend to Taylor as Bertucci drove to the hospital.

Paramedic Mackenzie followed in the second ambulance. Hubby Ryan followed in his car, but because of rush-hour traffic got separated en route to the hospital, where he wound up first – and where he wondered, of course with more than a little apprehension, what had delayed the ambulance transporting his wife.

Meantime, in the back of Bertucci and Mitrev’s ambulance, Taylor’s contractions kept increasing in frequency and severity, one right after another. Hers was what is medically defined as a “precipitous delivery,” or “rapid labour” – when childbirth occurs less than three hours following the first regular contractions. It is rare, observed in only one to three per cent of all births. Hers was lightning fast even by that standard.

“I originally didn’t think we were going to deliver the baby ourselves, in the ambulance. There was no head (emerging). That changed shortly after we were on the way to the hospital,” said Mitrev. “When we saw the head, we knew delivery was imminent. I said to Lilly that you’ve got to tell Sal to pull over – NOW.”

That is precisely what Paramedics are trained to do in such circumstances.

Bertucci did so, even though they were just a block from the hospital. He brought the ambulance to a safe stop in the Work Authority parking lot at the intersection of Tecumseh and Walker.

Bertucci jumped out and rushed to the back of the ambulance. Having 14 more years of paramedic experience than each of the three other Primary Care Paramedics on the call, and having furthermore helped his wife deliver their first child, he immediately took over as lead Paramedic – and began guiding Taylor through delivery, exactly as trained.

Mid-delivery, there was a temporary complication. Bertucci handled it – calmly, expertly and quickly. Then, upon delivery, he looked at baby Myles and saw two little eyes looking up, wide open.

“I’ve never seen that, in movies or anywhere,” Bertucci said. “But that kid’s eyes opened immediately.”

Added Mitrev: “Everybody was healthy, everything looked good.”

Said Pattinson: “Once Myles began crying, we knew they were good, and we could continue to the hospital.”

With Taylor cuddling her newborn close to her chest, Bertucci said he drove his ambulance across Walker Road to the Hospital “slower than I’ve ever driven in my entire life, but quick enough to still get there in a timely fashion.”

Not even five minutes had transpired from the time the Paramedics welcomed Myles into the world, to escorting mother and son into the Hospital, Bertucci said.

All three Paramedics, of course, had been trained on baby delivery at college. But none had delivered a baby on their own prior to March 4.

As for Taylor, when she realized she was going to deliver her second son in the back of an ambulance, just short of the hospital, did it scare her? Sure, but not as much as how fast it all went down.

“I’ve been telling people that this labour, start to finish, was shorter than the average feature film,” she said.

“It’s funny,” added Ryan, who met Taylor and his new baby son upon their arrival at the hospital. “The hospital later gave us a piece of paper that read, ‘Place of birth: Met Hospital’ and the ‘Doctor of delivery’ was, like, Dr. so-and-so. And we were like, ‘No, no, no – place of delivery was Work Authority parking lot, and delivery was by Sal.”

On Tuesday, April 14 the couple brought Myles – one day shy of his six-week birthday – to EWEMS headquarters at the County of Essex Administration Building in Essex, to meet three of the four Paramedics who brought him safely into the world: Bertucci, Mitrev and Pattinson.

“We just wanted to come down and say thank-you again to these great Paramedics, in person,” Taylor said. “Because as much as it all went by so fast, it was also scary. But these Paramedics handled it all really well. I wanted Myles to have a photo taken with them, as a memento of how it all happened. Because this story is kind of crazy, and most people can’t say that that’s how they were born!”

Where does the experience rank in Bertucci’s 17-year EWEMS career?

“No. 1 call of all time,” he said.