WASHINGTON — A baby just couldn’t wait to come into the world, and did so on Interstate 270 in Montgomery County early Thursday.
Jacob Nelson was a breech birth, delivered by his dad Jonathan Nelson of Germantown, Maryland.
Mom Amanda gave birth shortly before 4 a.m. and an ambulance crew arrived a few minutes later, says Jonathan Nelson in a phone interview from the hospital.
“Everyone is healthy,” he says. And mom? “She’s ecstatic.”
He had already bundled Jacob in his shirt and mom was holding her new baby when help arrived, Nelson says.
The couple had driven about six miles when they pulled over to the side of the interstate near Shady Grove Road. Nelson says he had to act quickly; a leg and foot were already out and they were blue.
Soon Jacob’s arms came out, then his head.
“It was a just a stroke of luck,” Nelson says of his son’s arms coming out before his head, making it easier to guide him out.
Nelson says he massaged the baby’s chest once he was out safely.
“He started breathing and regained his color.”
Nelson says he had CPR training in the past as a lifeguard and later in the Marines but he has no other medical training. Dispatchers were on the phone with him and coached him to tie off the umbilical cord and to clear the baby’s mouth and nose.
The family wasn’t far from the hospital at the time of Jacob’s birth, and EMS workers took mom and son there.
Everyone will be able to go home in a few days, Nelson says.
The family includes two other children: a son who is a sophomore in high school and a 2.5-year-old daughter.
