INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Amanda Davis felt the contractions coming in the wee hours Monday and jostled her husband awake.
She was going into labor. She and Mark were about to have their second child.
Shortly after 5 a.m., they were out the door of their Camby home and in their tan Chevy Tahoe, speeding toward Franciscan St. Francis Health on the south side of Indianapolis. Once on I-65 south, however, they suddenly came to a dead stop. Traffic was backed up and not moving at all.
Up ahead, a jackknifed semi was sprawled across the lanes.
Amanda felt her contractions growing more intense.
The contractions were getting more frequent.
The contractions were every 90 seconds.
“We saw some firetrucks fly by, and I told my husband, ’You’ve got to follow them, or I’m going to have this baby on the highway,’” Amanda, 34, told The Indianapolis Star (https://indy.st/1fGYCe2 ). “That’s what he did. He got over and got behind the last firetruck, and when they got to the scene, he ran up to them and said, ’My wife’s in labor, and we’ve got to get her to the hospital.’”
Several firefighters ran back to their vehicle, she said, and called an ambulance. Thinking she might not be able to hold off long enough for the ambulance, firefighters began preparing to deliver her baby in the Tahoe - removing a car seat to free up space and bringing blankets to spread out.
Fortunately, the ambulance arrived before Baby Max did.
The vehicle was in the interstate’s northbound lanes, however.
Mark and Amanda were in the southbound lanes.
“They got me on a gurney, and there were like eight or nine firefighters that had to lift me over a barrier, carry me down across the ditch (median) and then over another barrier and into the ambulance,” she recalled, laughing.
Their 20-some minutes of traffic-jam trepidation were over.
The ambulance whisked her off to Franciscan St. Francis Health-Indianapolis.
Mark, meanwhile, called his parents and told them to meet his wife at the hospital. He did not know whether he would be able to get there in time as he stayed with the SUV but still faced the traffic congestion.
To clear the way, though, another firefighter ran ahead and instructed other motorists to pull aside.
Mark, 38, made it to the hospital before Max was born at 10:51 a.m.
“I really want to thank that guy,” Mark said, “but I don’t even know his name.”
Amanda was hoping she would make it to the hospital in time to receive an epidural to ease the pain of childbirth.
“The firefighters were saying, ’You’ll have an exciting story,’” she said. “I was saying, ’I don’t care about an exciting story. I want the epidural.’”
Max weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces and measured 21.5 inches.
“He had a dramatic entrance,” Amanda said. “I hope he has a little less drama from here on out. I want him to have an exciting life but less of that kind of drama.”
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Information from: The Indianapolis Star, https://www.indystar.com
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