SOLON, Ohio (WJW) — A woman on Friday afternoon gave birth to a baby while in a car alongside the highway.
Just before 5 p.m. on Dec. 15, the woman’s husband told 911 dispatchers they were in a car along U.S. Route 422 West, just past Harper Road.
“We’re on the side of the highway. My wife is having a baby. There’s a lot of blood though, there’s a lot of blood. I need you guys to get here,” the man is heard in a 911 call audio released by the Solon Police Department.
The man said his wife had reached full-term with her second child and that her water had broken “a moment ago.”
He can be heard saying “push, push, push” and “I love you” as the dispatcher talked him through the process. “Keep going, you’re doing great. … Keep going baby, you’re doing amazing.”
Then suddenly, “She just gave birth. … The baby is out,” he said.
After a moment of suspense waiting for the newborn to respond, a baby’s cry is heard on the line, and the dispatcher sighs in relief. In the next minute, the baby was wrapped in a blanket and trying to feed, the man said.
Solon firefighters arrived soon after and took the mother and her new baby girl to a nearby hospital.
“As far as I know … it appears that both mom and baby are fine,” said Solon Fire Department Chief Mark Vedder.
The couple was trying to make it from Chagrin Falls to Cleveland Clinic’s Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield Heights, according to Vedder, but pulled over when the girl’s delivery was imminent.
Solon firefighters were headed to a fire alarm, but the battalion chief was able to divert a squad and an engine to the birth.
It’s rare for mothers to deliver in cars, but it happens about twice a year in Solon’s jurisdiction — “believe it or not,” Vedder said.
In 2017, about 1.6% of births in the U.S. happened outside a hospital, or 1 in every 62, according to a 2019 medical publication.