posted
I can't imagine giving birth, then starting my car and driving. I guess a person does what they have to, but wow.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote: Officers sent Coleman on and let the hospital know she was coming.
For those of you who are wondering "Why didn't the police "escort" her to the hospital?"
They don't let them do that anymore (except on TV movies). Insurance and liability and all that. They can offer to call you an ambulance (which they probably did her, but since she was by this time close to the hospital and the baby was already there - it made more sense to let her just continue on if she was in good shape) and they called ahead to the hospital. By protocol now - that is about all they are allowed to do.
posted
Yeah, also, its a bad idea to be in a car traveling along behind a speeding police car. Pretty much everyone pulls out from the side without looking -- its an extreme accident hazard.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mark, the Dayton Daily News has a more detailed article. Here's the text of it:
quote:It all started early Tuesday, just after midnight, at the CitGo All-In-1 service station on James H. McGee Boulevard, when a woman ran inside the store and told part-owner Lloyd Goff a customer was in labor at Pump 7. Goff, 33, ran to assist Coleman, who was sitting in her 1984 silver Chevy van. The driver's door was open and inside was Coleman, 34, in obvious pain. She was on her way to Kettering Memorial Hospital from her home in Trotwood. "I asked if she needed help," Goff said, "and she just leaned back in the seat, hollered a little, and I looked down and there was the baby's head." Goff called 911, but before a medic could arrive, "(Coleman) threw her leg over the steering wheel, groaned once, and the rest of the baby came out. She caught that baby, put it to her chest, gave me a look, like, 'I gotta go,' closed the door, put the van in gear and away she went." Goff, who watched his own son's birth and cut the umbilical cord, said, "That was nothing like this. This was amazing." Somehow, Coleman, undressed from the waist down and with the baby still attached by his umbilical cord, held the newborn in the crook of her left arm, and steered with her right hand as she slowly navigated the roughly 7-mile, 15-minute drive from the filling station in West Dayton onto U.S. 35 East and Interstate 75 South, then exited on Springboro Pike. Daughters Erin, 4, and Elaine, 3, were in the van, but they slept through the entire ordeal. Here's where it gets weird. Dayton police were dispatched after a driver at the gas station called and was following the van to make sure Coleman was OK. They somehow got the wrong license plate number on Coleman's van, and it came back stolen. Moraine police were called and were told the van was approaching from Spingboro Pike onto West Dorothy Lane. Their officers followed the van, now with a corrected license plate registered to Coleman. But there had been reports that while on U.S. 35, the driver was erroneously thought to be attempting to throw a baby from the van. Coleman, who had wrapped her jacket over the baby now nestled to her bosom, said she noticed as many as four police cruisers "busted a U-ie" and were following her. "I kept pulling over, making sure (the baby) was all right, breathing," she said. Officers "activated our emergency lights in the area of West Dorothy Lane and Governors Place," according to the police report Moraine police filed. "The van wouldn't stop and continued traveling east." Sirens were turned on and Coleman continued, traveling about 30 mph, according to the report. "I saw the little blue sign" at Southern Boulevard, Coleman said, and she turned on her signal. Cruisers surrounded her, she said, "and I heard, 'Get out of the car now with your hands up' and their guns were drawn. I opened the door and said, 'I just had a baby' and just let them see everything. I thought, what if they stop me for fleeing and eluding?" Moraine police Sgt. Chris Selby said when Coleman opened the door, he could see the baby still had part of the placenta on its head, "and I'd seen both my kids born, but I said, 'What the hell?' " According to the police report, Coleman "apologized and asked if she was in trouble," before officers quickly flagged her on, advising Kettering Memorial Hospital by radio that she was near and in need of emergency treatment. The hospital released Coleman on Wednesday. Her son, Richard Lee Coleman Jr., who weighed in at 6 pounds, 8 ounces, remains in intensive care. Her husband, Richard Lee Coleman Sr., was joined at the hospital by the couple's daughter, Elon, 8, and Debbie Coleman's 13-year-old son, Earl. The Colemans said Good Samaritan or Miami Valley hospitals would have been much closer for the birth, but neither accepts Blue Cross/Blue Shield/Anthem insurance, which is what the couple carry. According to Nancy Thickel, Miami Valley Hospital's director of communications, Coleman could have gone to either hospital through an arrangement for already established patients who were due to give birth through June 30. "We would have loved to have taken care of her," Thickel said, noting that Anthem patients can use the hospital's services in any medical emergency situation. "She needs the mother of the year award," Thickel said. Selby said, "In 10 years of doing this, it's nothing I've come across before. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It was just good nobody got hurt. It's hard to believe she could do that while driving. It's just amazing."
quote: The Colemans said Good Samaritan or Miami Valley hospitals would have been much closer for the birth, but neither accepts Blue Cross/Blue Shield/Anthem insurance, which is what the couple carry.
posted
My two sons were delivered at Kettering Hospital. I lived just off Stroop road. But if she was on James Magee road there are several hospitals that were closer in the City of Dayton.
posted
I imagine at a time like that, she probably couldn't figure that out - just drove to the hospital she knew.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
This just goes to show that what I've always said is true: Giving birth is a lot easier than women like to let on.
Posts: 1794 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
As impressive as this is, it doesn't compare to the woman who gave herself a c-section to deliver a perfectly healthy baby (boy, if memory serves).
posted
I'm with Ketchup Queen on the headbash here:
quote:The Colemans said Good Samaritan or Miami Valley hospitals would have been much closer for the birth, but neither accepts Blue Cross/Blue Shield/Anthem insurance, which is what the couple carry.
Absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable. For heaven's sake - this is a developed country, and people have to drive past two hospitals to get to one where they can have a baby.
posted
Well, strictly speaking, she could have had her baby in a hospital that didn't accept her insurance. Assuming she had a few thousand dollars handy, of course.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Never mind an ambulance -- she may have thought she had enough time to get to the hospital. And ambulances ain't cheap.
What I do not understand -- and why I disagree that she deserves any "mother of the year" awards -- is why she didn't call a cab. Or a neighbor.
She and her daughters are ok, thank God. But not because she did anything particularly intelligent here! She's not a first time mother, and she has no excuse for not knowing that you DO NOT DRIVE while in labor!
I'm just picturing her -- or another woman, following her lead -- losing control of the car during a particularly intense contraction. Driving herself, to whatever hospital, while in labor was STUPID.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm pretty worried about this woman's mental judgement. Was she afraid of the expense of an ambulance? Then again, she may not have known how fast the baby might be coming.
And I'm really worried about the baby still being in intensive care.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm not sure-- when she was transporting the baby, did she have him in a car seat? It seems to me like if she didn't, the police should have refused to allow her to drive...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Right, but what are the odds the cops were even remotely prepared to deal with the image before them?
Probably men, maybe married with kids, maybe not. They're expecting something and they see...a half-naked woman, holding a newborn with cord still attached.
How exactly does one prepare for a situation like that?
posted
kq, considering that the baby was still attached to the umbilicus (which was still attached to her? that was implied) . . . anyway, it mentioned him being cradled in one arm and her driving with the other.
Yeah, not the best situation. Although what the cops could have done at that point is unclear. Getting her and the baby to the hospital ASAP was the most important thing. And Trevor is undoubtedly correct -- they were probably a bit taken aback.
Moral of the story: When in labor, don't drive yourself (and your other kids!) to the hospital. Odds are you won't get there anyway.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |