San Gabriel Valley Tribune
POMONA, Calif. — There was a special delivery at a local McDonald’s last week after baby Kora Raye couldn’t wait for her parents to arrive at the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center.
Instead, the newborn decided to make her arrival while El Monte Police Cpl. Aram Choe and his wife Elisabeth were driving the 25 miles from their Eastvale home to the hospital.
“When it was happening, I kind of was in that cop mode,” Choe said Monday. “My emotions went out the door and I just had to get the job done.”
His wife Elisabeth, whose estimated due date was three weeks away, woke Choe up around midnight on April 28 after experiencing some contractions, he said.
They were at Towne and Holt avenues in Pomona when his wife told him the baby wasn’t going to wait.
“I pulled over to the first well-lit parking lot I could find, which happened to be a McDonald’s,” Choe said. “As I parked, I was dialing 911 and letting them know we needed a paramedic to respond.”
When the police officer exited the car and got around to the passenger seat to assist his wife, the baby’s head was already out, he said.
When Choe saw that baby Kora’s umbilical cord was wrapped around the back of her neck, he utilized what he had learned from First Aid classes he had taken.
“I knew... I had to clear (the cord) over her face,” Choe said. “Right after that, the rest of her body came out. This all happened in the front seat of our Ford Expedition.”
A manager at the fast food restaurant helped by providing towels to keep the newborn warm, he said.
Choe is back at work this week and mom and baby, who spent a day and a half recovering at the hospital, are doing great, he said.
“The afternoon that we came home, she wanted to go shopping and grab dinner,” Choe said of his wife. “This was our fourth child so she’s a pro.”
Baby Kora has one sister and two brothers, he said.
Kora Raye Aram was born last week in the parking lot of a Pomona McDonald’s, as her parents, El Monte Police Cpl. Aram Choe and his wife Elisabeth were making the 25-mile trip from their Eastvale home to the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center.
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