HIALEAH, FLA. (WSVN) - Firefighters from a station in Hialeah sprang into action to help deliver a baby — and it’s a boy.
In an Instagram post, Hialeah Fire Rescue said a couple drove over to Hialeah Fire Station No. 9 and asked for help, Tuesday afternoon.
The couple and the baby’s grandmother said they were driving to a birthing center but realized they would not make it.
The baby’s mother, Jackie Cerna, spoke with 7News on Saturday.
“I said, “I’m not going to make it to the birthing center, and this baby is coming here and fast, fast and furious,” she said.
Cerna, 34, said she had begun having constant contractions.
“When I went to the restroom, my water broke,” she said.
Cerna, who was already in labor, said she was always planning to have a natural birth, but she didn’t see this coming.
Things became chaotic as Cerna headed to the birthing center.
“I kept screaming, like, ‘This baby is coming. I gotta push, I have to push,’ and they’re like, ‘Try to stop him,’ and I [said], ‘I can’t stop him; there’s no stopping a baby coming,'” she said, “and we were at the corner, and it was either turn left towards the birthing center or go right, and my husband was like, ‘We’re going to the fire station.'”
Hialeah Fire Station No. 9 is located less than a mile from the family’s home.
“As soon as we pulled in, [my husband] gets out of the car, starts yelling at them to come, and I’m already pushing,” said Cerna. “I feel the urge to push. I can’t control it; it’s coming out of me.”
Within seconds, the firefighters jumped into action.
“They came running, and I don’t even think they had time to get, like, gloves on,” she said. “I know one of them almost caught him barehanded.”
Crews successfully delivered Baby James at 4:53 p.m., about 23 minutes after Cerna’s water broke.
“Next thing I know, I hear my mom saying, ‘He’s here, he’s here, he’s here! He’s good,'” said Cerna. “The firefighters were like, ‘You have a healthy baby, he’s good,’ and I’m still kind of like processing everything, and I finally turned around, and I was just like, ‘Oh, my God, like, he’s here.'”
Cerna’s mother, Roxy Quevedo, captured every moment on video.
“With her first child, I was not a part of it because it was in COVID, and I kind of was just FaceTiming and suffering through it all in FaceTime,” said Quevedo, “and I really wanted to be a part of this. I just didn’t think that it was gonna be this way.”
Paramedics took the mother and her baby to the hospital for be checked out. Cerna and James have since been released and are back home, thankful for the men who helped to safely deliver their bundle of joy.
“I’m forever grateful to them, and yeah, they’re our superheroes,” said Cerna. “We’re definitely, like, forever staying in contact with those gentlemen.”
Baby James also has an older brother, and the two are adjusting well at home.
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