HIALEAH, Fla. – A group of Hialeah firefighters were able to reunite with a woman Monday whose baby they delivered last week.
Jackie Cerna was trying to make it to the hospital, but her little man just couldn’t wait.
Cerna knew her water had broken, but what she didn’t know was just how eager baby James was to enter the world!
“We got in the car thinking I had time because we were going to a birthing center, but once I was in the car, I felt the urge to push and I started screaming and saying, ‘This baby is coming right now. We gotta go,’” she said.
Cerna’s husband quickly switched gears.
“He said, ‘I’m calling 911 and we are going to the fire station that’s right here down the block,’ and we were all like, ‘Yes, that’s a great idea,’” she said.
Five firefighters at Fire Station 9 in Hialeah delivered her baby. It happened in the front passenger seat of the car. It was quick.
“They came running and I already felt the urge to push and I was crowning and the firefighter caught him pretty much bare handed with my husband assisting him,” she said.
Mom and baby were then loaded into the ambulance and off to the hospital they went.
Healthy and happy, Cerna was of course a bit tired, but over the moon that her family of three is now a family of four.
“I thought I had more time,” she said. “With my first, when my water broke, he didn’t come until 22 hours later and here it was 20 minutes.”