The News & Advance
BEDFORD COUNTY — Deputy Allison Key ended her 8-year career with the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office not with a firearm in her hands, but with a newborn girl.
About 2 a.m. Wednesday, Key stood in the county’s dispatch center when the call came — the shaky voice of a man reported his girlfriend was in labor.
“Our dispatcher turned, looked at me and said, ‘Go!’” Key said.
She raced more than 12 miles to the parking lot of Sheetz on U.S. 460 in New London. The mother, Robin Posey, was in the passenger seat of a car, actively in labor.
The couple was trying to get to Virginia Baptist Hospital in Lynchburg from their home in Huddleston, but Posey’s labor progressed before they could arrive.
The baby’s father, Earl Logwood — with the help of dispatchers — was trying to help Posey breathe as she labored to deliver the child without any pain medication.
“Oh Lord, I hope I do not have to deliver,” he remembered thinking.
He was relieved when Key arrived to help.
“I tried to comfort her the best I could. I had never delivered a baby before,” Key said.
Eddie Witt, a supervisor with Bedford County Fire & Rescue, arrived soon after with an ambulance.
And, in the back of that ambulance, Posey gave birth to her second daughter, Willow Rose. She said the baby came just seconds after paramedics arrived.
Key had the honor of cutting the Willow’s umbilical cord.
“Look, she brought her [baby] with her!” Witt joked with hospital staff when the family arrived in the back of the ambulance.
“She had to make a grand entrance,” Posey joked of her daughter.
The next day, mother and daughter — all 20 inches and six pounds, 14 ounces of her — were resting happily and healthily in the room where Posey had planned to give birth.
Willow’s arrival was a bit of a surprise, Posey said, since she wasn’t due until the 30th.
“She’s just the best Christmas present you could get, just a little bit early. … She decided she wanted to come before Christmas.”
The couple is grateful for the fast response from Bedford authorities.
“Thank God, thank God for these people who don’t even know us to help us,” Logwood said.
“They were awesome; I just can’t say that enough.”
Key is leaving the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office to take a position with Babcock and Wilcox in Lynchburg. She said spending the joyous night with Willow and her parents was the perfect end to her career as a deputy.
“There’s nothing better than getting a new baby for Christmas,” Key said. “It was a miracle how things worked.”
And Willow’s parents wonder if the little girl already is on her way to a career as a first responder.
“Maybe she’ll be a paramedic — born in the back of an ambulance,” Posey said.