A newbie 911 dispatcher in Utah who was still in his probationary training period helped deliver a baby in a family truck on I-15 last week. William Kalaher started taking solo calls as a 911 dispatcher only a couple of weeks ago. He faced a scary test when he took a call from Kristin Allfred and her husband Shay, who called when Kristin was starting to deliver her daughter in the car on December 18.
The newborn baby is named Anne Allfred
According to KUTV, Kristin started feeling contractions at about 1 a.m. on Friday, Dec.18. Just a few minutes later, her husband started driving them to the Salt Lake City Hospital. Shay kept driving as he thought they could get to the hospital in plenty of time. Kristin told ABC News that they were half-way through the hospital when she felt like she “needed to start pushing.”
From when the couple started talking to the 911 dispatcher, Kristin had given birth to a baby girl within a minute. She pushed her newborn daughter out and placed her up on her chest. Then she quickly realized something was wrong with the baby. Kristin and Shay were panicked to see the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby’s neck. She wasn’t breathing.
How the 911 dispatcher helped the couple
Luckily, William Kalaher knew what to do. He told Shay, “Alright, listen to me very carefully. This is what I need you to do.” He asked Shay to take a string –a shoelace, possibly — and tie it tightly around the cord six inches from the baby. The baby started breathing in less than 30 seconds. “As soon as we tilted her head back, she just gasped her first breath and it was like, ah, thank goodness,” Shay told KUTV in Salt Lake City.
Allfred said the 911 dispatcher kept his cool and helped them focus on what was going on. “He was great,” said Shay. Police and paramedics reached the scene about five minutes later to check the mother and baby. They were taken to the Intermountain Medical Center (IMC) on Friday and were released on Sunday. “I really wasn’t expecting it. But you’ve got to be ready for it. It’s 911,” said Kalaher. “The first thing I did was call my mom! I was like, ‘Mom, I delivered a baby on I-15!’ And she’s like, ‘What?'” he told KUTV.
