Officer helps deliver baby on freeway for 2nd time
Apr 26, 2013, 1:51 AM
HONOLULU (AP) – Honolulu police Officer Stephen Keogh jokes that he didn’t receive any training in obstetrics while in the academy, but he’s been getting a lot of practice delivering babies.
Keogh, a traffic motorcycle officer with seven years on the force, delivered a baby girl during Thursday morning’s rush-hour commute on Honolulu’s H-1 freeway. It was his second delivery on the freeway: he helped with a birth last year.
The 39-year-old, who is single and has no children of his own, said the latest birth was a little girl who “came out right in the front seat of that pick-up truck.”
The baby’s father had pulled up behind Keogh on an east-bound, center median near the Middle Street exit, saying he didn’t think they would make it to the hospital in time. The couple was driving from their Waipahu home during rush-hour in Honolulu, which has some of the nation’s worst traffic.
A few minutes later, the baby arrived.
“She gave up a pretty good cry when she came out,” Keogh recalled.
Paramedics took mother and daughter to a hospital where they were doing well, said Shayne Enright, spokeswoman for the Honolulu Emergency Services Department.
Keogh joked that “in the academy, we don’t get ob-gyn training,” but added that his previous experience helped. But it was the mother who did all the work, he said: “She was composed. She was in control.”
“I think it was divine intervention…a lot of luck,” he said. “In our job, we don’t always see the best that life has to offer.”
The baby didn’t yet have a name when paramedics whisked them away, Keogh said. The girl is the mother’s third child.
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