Lajes baby born on way to hospital

  • Published
  • By Capt. Yvonne Levardi
  • 65th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
LAJES FIELD, Azores (AFPN) --  When Morgon Damron asks his parents about his birth, Kimberly and Todd Damron can tell him he was born a Portuguese citizen. Then they can tell him he must have been very anxious to be born, because he could not wait until they got to the hospital.

“I was sitting in the front seat of the car, and I kept having contractions, nonstop,” said Staff Sgt. Kimberly Damron, of the 65th Operations Support Squadron. “I asked my husband to lean the seat back so I would be more comfortable. He said he would as long as I didn’t push.”

She said she did not think she was pushing, but it quickly became apparent to her the baby was going to make his appearance soon.

“I said ‘Honey, the baby’s coming right now,’” Kimberly said. “He wasn’t waiting for anybody.”

Staff Sgt. Todd Damron, also of the 65th OSS, said that earlier in the day the whole situation had been calm and relaxed. Kimberly had been having contractions about 10 minutes apart all afternoon. They called the on-call doctor when the contractions were closer to five minutes apart, and he told them to head to the hospital.

“The contractions went from five minutes apart to having the baby,” Todd said. “When she said the baby was coming, I reached over to try and reassure her that we’d reach the hospital, but I felt the baby’s head crowning.”

Todd pulled the car over to the side of the road.

“We did the only thing we could do, find out what was going on,” Todd said.

They took off her pants, and Todd could see Morgon’s head. He pushed on it a little, and Morgon slid out into his father’s hands. He was born on the highway at 8:10 p.m.

“He wasn’t breathing so I gave him a couple of firm pats on the back,” Todd said. “When I did that I could feel some movement. I turned him over, and that’s when he took some deep breaths and started moving his arms and legs.”

He wrapped Morgon up, laid him next to his mother and got back on the road.

“At that point we were about six minutes from the hospital, so I figured we’d worry about the umbilical cord then,” Todd said.

“I wasn’t scared because Todd wasn’t. He kept me pretty calm,” Kimberly said.

When they arrived at the emergency room, Todd said the paramedic was at first a bit confused by what he was saying, but confusion quickly turned to surprise when the paramedic saw Kimberly and Morgon in the car. Within a couple of minutes, about 15 staff members and a surgeon had come to help.

“The surgeon cut the cord in the car,” Todd said, “and within about a half hour Kimberly was in recovery with Morgon, sitting up, talking and generally feeling fine.”

Both mother and baby are back home and, Kimberly said, Morgon is growing, eating and is perfectly healthy.

“He’s wonderful,” Kimberly said.

Morgon has already earned his first nickname, his father said.

“It’s ‘Jetta Boy’ because he was born in his daddy’s Jetta,” Todd said. “The story we will tell Morgon is his birth was a miracle.” (Courtesy of U.S. Air Forces in Europe News Service)