Family recalls 911 dispatcher helping deliver baby on the side of I-95 one year ago

"Sir, that decision is up to you."

It was only a year ago that Kirk Lawrence was at an I-95 exit on his way to Christiana Hospital, but he didn't know if his wife, Sally, would make it there to deliver their second child.

He had asked the 911 dispatcher's advice whether to keep driving or pull over. 

The husband and wife had left their Williamsburg Court home in Brandywine Hundred at 2:45 a.m. June 9, 2017, after Sally woke up and knew she was having the baby. 

"I told him to start packing up because we were going to have to head to the hospital soon," Sally said. 

She began to make herself tea and toast when her water broke. She rushed up the stairs as quickly as she could to tell Kirk the time had come. 

They called a neighbor to watch their 2-year-old, Olivia, and called her family down in Sussex County to say the baby was coming. 

Kirk placed a towel under Sally, and she put her purse between her legs on the floor. They started their 30-minute ride to Christiana Hospital.

While passing the Blue Rocks Stadium in Wilmington, Sally said, "Call 911. We are going to need help." 

Kirk maneuvered the Jeep Cherokee to the shoulder before Exit 4 on I-95, choosing an empty corridor across from the Sheraton. He dialed the emergency number. Andrew Capparell picked up. 

"New Castle County, Delaware. What is the address of the emergency?"

Sally screamed. 

It was Capparell's second delivery call in two days. 

"Most people here don't get a delivery in 20 years of working here," Capparell said recently from his call center.

In a single day, about 26 New Castle County dispatchers take 2,000 calls. Jeffrey P. Miller, the chief of emergency communications, said staff members are all trained in nationally recognized protocols. 

One of the hardest parts of the job is trying to gauge the situation solely based on the phone caller. 

"It's difficult to know what is really going on," Miller said. "We just have to be prepared. One call could be a fire, and the next is a kid at the bottom of a pool."

Kirk then asked Capparell's whether to keep going or pull off. 

Capparell said later that if Kirk had kept going, getting to him would have been much more difficult and possibly taken longer. 

"That was the end of the district and who knows how long it would have taken some of the EMTs from the other areas to respond and find them," Capparell said.  

In the middle of Kirk and Capparell's conversation and her own screams, Sally yelled,"I feel the head coming out!" 

She was nearly standing, hunched over the seat.

There was another scream. It wasn't hers.

A squalling, pink baby girl lay on Sally's purse. 

Kirk switched his phone to speaker and put it on the console, then got out of the parked Jeep to run to the passenger side of the SUV. 

Capparell walked Kirk and Sally though post-delivery protocol, including wiping the baby's nose and mouth to clear the passageways and drying the baby with a blanket. 

Sally reminded Kirk that one of their daughter's blankets was in the backseat. Sally held their newborn, Cate, on her chest in the reclined passenger seat. 

Capparell told the couple to watch the baby carefully for three minutes before they used a shoelace to tie off the umbilical cord. In those minutes, the dispatcher tried to keep the couple as calm as he could, he said later.

He wanted to make sure the baby kept crying and that Sally was doing well. 

Kirk tied the shoelace 6 inches from the baby, and the paramedics arrived. Before hanging up, Kirk asked for Capparell's name and said, "Thanks, man. "

This is the first year the dispatch center has reached a national standard that seeks to have 90 percent of calls answered within 10 seconds or less. That's three rings. 

Miller is proud of his staff but worried that without property tax increases, he will be forced to lay off people. 

"About 89.5 percent of my budget is people," he said. "I'm at the point now where I am going to have to cut people. There are no more staplers and paper to cut."

Today, Cate perfectly matches her entrance into the world. Sally said she is full of energy, spontaneous and kind and does everything on her own terms. Cate celebrated her first birthday Saturday with family and friends eating cupcakes. 

Kirk and Sally still hope to meet Capparell and thank him in person. 

"You grow up knowing that you call 911 when there is an emergency, but you always wonder if you will know when. But I knew we needed help that night," Sally said. "All you can do is be grateful that 911 knows how to walk you through this."

Contact Josephine Peterson at (302)379-091, or jhpeterson@delawareonline.com and on Twitter at @jopeterson93. 

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