The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON, Texas — Delivering a baby was a first for Arlington firefighter Edwin Martinez and paramedics Michael Wynn and Mark Shellenberger.
It was almost an afterthought where little William Nathaniel Jones decided to come into the world early Tuesday: an ambulance outside a Randol Mill strip club.
“I didn’t think I was going to be delivering a baby a year into being at the department,” Martinez said Thursday at a news conference held by Arlington Fire and Rescue.
The baby’s father, Nate Jones, said he and his wife, Amenze, were driving from their Mansfield home to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Plano when they got pulled over for speeding.
By the time they got back on the road, Amenze began going into labor.
“All of a sudden my wife was like, ‘I’m going to have the baby,’” Jones said. “So the plan was to go to Arlington Memorial.”
But the family didn’t quite make it there. About 1 a.m., they called 911 and stopped at Randol Mill and State Highway 360.
Engine 5 of the Arlington Fire Department was the first to respond to Flashdancer cabaret.
Luckily, the paramedics arrived just in time. The rescue team helped Amenze onto the stretcher and into the back of the ambulance, where William’s delivery went smoothly, given the circumstances.
The Jones family had no complaints about the rescue crew.
“They were very calm,” Jones said. “If it was their first time, it didn’t feel like it at all.”
Copyright 2011 THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS