On Saturday a new baby girl was born and on her birth certificate the 178 is the location and the dad is listed as the doctor. A 911 tape breaking down what happened that night.
Skyler was born at 7:55 P.M. weighing five pounds and fifteen ounces at a turnout right at the mouth of the canyon as her family was heading to Bakersfield for her birth.
A 911 tape saying “Fire Department what’s the address of your emergency?” It was a phone call Devin Marks wasn’t planning to make. The dad-to-be on the way to Bakersfield…to welcome his daughter into the world, when she had presented a detour. “The contractions were so intense they went from ten minutes apart to three to five minutes apart within like 20 minutes,” said Sierra Monroe, the mother who gave birth on the side of the road.
On Saturday, Sierra Monroe was in labor on the side of highway 178, near the mouth of the canyon. Devin on the 911 tape saying, “she asked to pull over and the baby is like coming now.” Kay McGaha, a 911 dispatcher for the Bakersfield Fire Department, getting the call. “Normally the calls that we take, it usually is the worst day of somebody’s life on this particular occasion it was the best day,” said McGaha, the communications supervisor for the Emergency Communication Center.
McGaha walking a nervous dad…through the most important moment of his family’s life. “She’s on the ground…she’s on the ground bless her heart,” Marks said to McGaha on the 911 tape. The 911 call also capturing the moments marks held his daughter for the first time. “I’m delivering this baby…I got the baby in my hands,” said Marks on the 911 tape.
“When she came out I just kept saying I can’t believe I just had a baby on the side of the road,” said Monroe. A moment for most parents that happens in the comfort of a delivery room. “You need somebody to tie the cord, take off a shoelace if you need to,” said McGaha on the tape. “But we were all wearing boots so we have no shoelaces so I used a phone charger cord to tie the umbilical cord with,” said Devin Marks, the dad who helped deliver the baby.
Mom and dad, waiting for help to arrive…eventually getting to that hospital. “It was awesome…not very many people can say that they delivered their own kid so I think it was sweet,” said Marks. The family says that baby Skyler is happy and healthy at home with her older brother.
