Water Cooler

Modesto Officers Deliver Baby On Labor Day

MODESTO (CBS13) ― Two local police officers spent their labor day helping a woman in labor! Here's how they delivered the baby inside a parked car at a gas station.

This is a pretty amazing story of how this baby boy was delivered a day after his due date. His father and police officers say it happened so quickly and it happened on Labor Day, a day that brings on a whole new meaning for one local family.

Little Jesus is a newborn baby who made quite the entrance into this world on -- of all days -- Labor Day. Within minutes after his mom's water broke, Jesus was born in his parents' car at a gas station parking lot in Modesto not with the help of nurses and doctors, but two police officers.

"I've been doing this for a little bit of time. I don't think I get nervous much, but this made me nervous," said Officer Steven Anderson, Modesto Police Dept.  

It happened at a Modesto intersection. Officers saw the man get out of his car, waving frantically. They told him to get into this parking lot and that's when they saw a baby coming out of the woman. There, the two officers helped deliver a healthy baby boy. Firefighters were called in and let dad cut the umbilical chord.
    
"I was anxious, real nervous. I'm thankful the police officers were right there. It was a big relief," said Jose Blanco, father.

"[The] majority of it already had come out, and we took over from there," said Officer Ben Kroutil, Modesto Police Dept. "You don't think about it, just do it. We're trained."

Father Jose Blanco adds when his wife started to have labor pains in the morning she drank some homemade tea, a family recipe, believed to help labor go faster. They just didn't expect little Jesus to arrive so quickly.

"To have them happy, healthy -- I was honored to be a part and help out," said Officer Anderson.

Jesus is the couple's second child. Their first baby took about 12 hours to deliver, so you can see there's something special about that tea that really works.

The two officers were so touched by the delivery, they went and bought little outfits with fire engines and police cars on it for "Jesus."

And get this: the delivery happened not far from the hospital. It was just a couple blocks away.
 

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)