Niagara Falls NY Firefighters Deliver Baby

At first, when the call echoed through the Falls Fire Department's 10th Street fire house, Capt. Gordon Stewart and Firefighters Mike Naccarato and Tom Tedesco didn't think twice about it.

"It was just a normal 'woman in labor' call," Stewart said. "Nothing unusual about it."

But as the firefighters headed to a home in the 600 block of 18th Street, at 1:57 a.m. Tuesday, some critical additional information came over the radio.

"Dispatch told us the woman was 41 weeks pregnant and her contractions were 5 minutes apart," Stewart said.

Still the 31-year fire department veteran wasn't worried. In all his years on the job, Stewart had never come close to having to actually deliver a baby.

"My training chief said, 'You'll see a lot of things on this job. You'll probably never deliver a baby'," Naccarato said with a smile.

In his 16 years in the fire service, Naccarato said there was only one time that the EMTs and an ambulance hadn't made it to a baby delivery in time to relieve firefighters. He didn't think this call would be any different.

As the firefighters rolled up to the home, a man on the porch holding a small child, directed them to a bathroom at the rear of the house. As Stewart, Naccarato and Tedesco reached the bathroom they noted it was "about the size of a broom closet."

The 27-year-old woman told the fire crew that this would be her seventh child. And she added the child was ready to be born.

"She said, 'I'm gonna have this baby any minute'," Stewart said. "And I told her, 'The ambulance is on the way.' "

But the child wasn't waiting.

Stewart had the woman lie on the bathroom floor, in the birthing position. Tedesco positioned himself, "bent down in the position of a (baseball) catcher," and noticed that the baby had started to crown. The firefighters estimated that they had about a foot to a foot and a half of space to work on the delivery.

"I kept asking my captain, "What's the ETA on the ambulance?' " Tedesco, a father himself, said. "We train for this, but I've never experienced (a live birth and delivery)."

Stewart noted that "normally we get there and give support and wait for the ambulance." Tuesday, that wasn't an option.

With Stewart guiding him, Tedesco gently pulled the baby from his mother and "caught" the child. With Naccarato grabbing equipment from a bag in the hallway, and reaching between Tedesco's arm and body in the cramped space, he cut the umbilical cord and cleared the baby's airways.

Tedesco then tickled the baby's foot to get him breathing.

"(Tedesco) did a great job," Stewart said.

Just then, an EMT poked his head in the bathroom.

"He asked, 'How's she doing?' and I said, "The mother or the baby?' " Stewart said. "He couldn't believe the baby was already here."

The mother and baby were transported to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center where both were reported to be doing well.

"It really was a team effort."Tedesco said. "Three guys, no room to operate. It was a first."

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