EG police officer delivers baby

In the early morning hours of Friday, February 21, long before the sun came up, officer Aaron Carda’s pager went off.  The Eagle Grove police department and EMS crew were dispatched to the home of a woman who was having contractions.  Carda was first on the scene and he was in for the surprise of a lifetime.

“We respond to all ambulance calls...and when I got there I figured I would just be there to comfort her until the EMS arrived, but (the situation) went in a whole different direction very quickly,” Carda admitted, still a little bit in disbelief.

The mother was in labor and she wasn’t going to wait to get to the hospital before she delivered.  With her husband and four other children standing around her, Carda knew he was about to do something he had never done before - deliver a baby.

“My initial thought when she said ‘It’s coming!’ was oh boy,” Carda recalled.  

He had received a little bit of training on delivering babies in the academy, but only a little, and he said that was mainly to make sure they were breathing and to keep them warm.

Carda delivered the new little bundle of joy, at home, within five minutes of receiving the 9-1-1 call...and he doesn’t remember much more than that...not even if it was a boy or a girl.  

“As soon as the baby was coming and I saw the head, I really didn’t pay much attention to what else was happening,” he said.  “I went into survival mode for mom and baby.”

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