By Susan Weich
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — It was the best of calls followed by the worst of calls for Sheryl Hauk.
Hauk, 44, has been a dispatcher with Central County Emergency 911 in Ellisville for seven years, where she estimates she has handled about 14,000 emergencies, but not two like these.
“When you answer the phone, you never know what you’re going to get,” she said. “Still, these will always stick out in my mind.”
In one, she helped to bring a life into this world, and in the other, Hauk helped keep another one in it.
Both calls came from the person in trouble, and they both happened at the same remote intersection - Highways V and 100 in Franklin County. They were just 12 days apart.
On Wednesday night, the board of directors at Central County gave Hauk and the other emergency personnel who responded a stack of commendations. Even better, Hauk, of St. Peters, got to meet the people she had helped.
There were tears, just as on the days the incidents happened.
On May 21, Brandy Bull and her boyfriend, Rich Coulter, were rushing to St. John’s Mercy Hospital in Washington, Mo., because Bull was 37 weeks pregnant and in labor.
When her contractions started coming two minutes apart, she got worried that she wouldn’t get to the hospital, which was 10 miles away, in time. She dialed 911 and talked to Hauk, who asked her if this was her first pregnancy.
When Bull, now 26, said this was her sixth pregnancy, Hauk got Coulter on the line and told him he needed to pull their minivan over and lie Bull down in the back. Hauk told him not to worry because she would tell him what to do.
“When she has her next contraction, I want you to see if you see the baby’s head,” Hauk told Coulter on the 911 tape.
“She’s having another contraction,” he said.
“Is the baby coming out?”
“It’s coming out. The head’s out.”
Hauk heard the baby crying and Coulter laughing. She asked if the baby was a boy or a girl. It was a boy.
Hauk talked Coulter through clamping the umbilical cord with his shoestring and made sure the family, from St. Clair in Franklin County, was OK until an ambulance arrived.
Almost two weeks later, on June 2, Hauk answered a call from Larry Greene, 54, of Imperial, who was having chest pains.
He had just left a scrap yard in Franklin County when he started feeling tightness in his chest. He got in his truck and turned on the air conditioner, but he wasn’t getting better.
“I started driving as fast as I could toward 44 because I thought I needed to get to a major highway if I was going to have a chance,” he said.
When the pain got worse, Greene stopped his truck. Hauk asked if he had a history of heart problems. He said he was taking medicine for an irregular heartbeat.
She told him an ambulance was on the way.
“You don’t have to talk to me, but I’m going to stay on here with you,” Hauk told him.
Greene said he was going to lie down on the side of the road to see if that would make him feel better.
“It hurts; it’s like somebody is sitting on my chest,” he said.
“Try to take deep breaths. I know it hurts. It’s all right, Larry,” Hauk said.
Greene said he would try to hang on.
“I’m not ready to go; I’ve got young grandkids,” he said.
Hauk asked their names and told Greene to keep talking to her.
“I’m not going to make it,” Greene said.
“We’re going to make it together,” Hauk answered.
Greene started praying, “Lord, if it’s my time, I’m ready, Father,” he said.
As Hauk retold the story, that was the one point where she got choked up.
“I just wanted to crawl through the phone,” she said. “It was a helpless feeling.”
Shortly afterward, the ambulance arrived, and Greene was rushed to a hospital. He had suffered a massive heart attack, and doctors put a stent in his main artery, which was 100 percent blocked, he said. He’s made a full recovery.
On Wednesday night, Hauk held the baby she helped to deliver, as the young couple thanked her.
Hauk also hugged Greene and his wife, Kathy.
“‘Thank you’ isn’t nearly adequate for what you did for me,” Greene told Hauk.