NASHVILLE, TN (WZTV/CNN) - A Tennessee mom who had her baby in a parking lot last week lucked out when a nurse happened to be close by to deliver the child and save his life.
With the help of a stranger, baby Elijah made it into this world safely, but not without difficulty.
The woman was in labor, with a crying toddler next to her, in the back seat of her car outside a Vanderbilt University Medical Center parking garage. That’s when registered nurse Steven Welton noticed the woman in distress.
"It's kind of fuzzy at this point because adrenaline was pumping, but it looked to be about halfway out so I grabbed him, pulled him the rest of the way," Welton said. "I could see the umbilical cord and everything. No gloves."
However, Welton a former trauma nurse, said he noticed something was wrong.
“He was blue and not doing anything - wasn't moving, wasn't crying," Welton said. "I just said, 'I've got to start compressions' and held him in my hand and started doing it, and about two minutes of solid compressions."
That's when baby Elijah finally took a breath. Welton's mother, Vanderbilt Director of Clinical Nutrition Chris Biesemeier, witnessed the entire thing.
"We were both most concerned about the baby and that the baby be OK," Biesemeier said.
After getting baby Elijah and mom inside the hospital safely, Welton remembers looking over at baby Elijah’s dad, who returned shortly after all the baby was delivered.
"I'm just thinking, 'Oh my goodness' and he kind of had a smile on his face, I think because he was happy that things were getting better," Welton said. "But in my mind, I was like, 'Man you have no idea what just happened.'"
Mom and baby are both at home and healthy.
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