Dad Helps Deliver Baby In Van In Cicero
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The baby just couldn't wait.
Hector Morales was rushing to get his pregnant fiancee Kathryn Engle to the hospital, and had to pull over at a gas station in Cicero and help is wife deliver the baby in their van.
Morales had called 911 while headed to the hospital. Emergency dispatcher Macario Rodriguez knew police would be at the scene of that crash, so he urged Morales to drive there. Morales pulled into a gas station parking lot, but baby wasn't going to wait for the cops and paramedics, so Morales had to act fast.
"I saw the baby, and the baby's head's coming, so I had to hold onto the head," Morales said. "She started pushing. I'm like, 'Okay, this is happening.' The baby came, slid right into my arm, and then so I held him, kept him warm with clothes."
Dad Helps Deliver Baby In Van
Cicero Police Lt. Larry Polk and Det. Joseph Melone simply stood outside the car and let dad deliver his son.
"Dad was well prepared to handle what he had to handle, and he did a fine job," Polk said. "I was impressed at how well-composed he was. He did a fine job. And, as I say, he should be congratulated, if anybody should be, because he did a fine job taking care of his baby."
Paramedics were called and the baby -- named Aidan Hector Morales -- and mother were taken by ambulance to West Suburban Hospital in nearby Oak Park, where they are doing fine. Aidan weighed in at 7 pounds, 9 ounces.
Morales described his fiancee as "very stubborn."
Authorities initially thought the couple got stuck in traffic due to the earlier traffic crash, but that turned out not to be true.
Morales said his fiancee didn't want to get in the car to go to the hospital until her contractions were three minutes apart.
"The contractions kept getting stronger and stronger and she said, 'Pull over.' And I said, 'We're almost there, almost there,'" Morales said. "She said, 'No, just pull over here,' and that's when I called the police."
A Cicero town spokesman said Aidan was the first baby born this year in Cicero, noting the town doesn't have any hospitals.
