Moncton - One couple thought they had plenty of time to get to the hospital during Monday morning’s snowstorm, but things occured so quickly that they had to pull over on the side of the highway for their baby to be born.
Ashley Hicks, her mother, and Joseph Gautreau were compulsory to pull over on the Trans-Canada Highway, near the Casino New Brunswick and Magnetic Hill exit shortly before 8 am. They called for help but the baby arrived before emergency workers could get there.
“With my daughter she was six-and-a-half hours and they say it gets easier”, said her mother. “But then with my son it was 14-and-a-half hours, and then this one was, like, three minutes.” She said that she felt ill during the pregnancy so she had been eager for an easy labour, but didn't think it would be as easy as it was.
Gautreau had by then tied the umbilical cord with a lace from his shoe when the firefighters arrived.
“We just sort of helped out,” Jamie Richford, one of the firefighter. “We made sure the umbilical cord was set to be cut and we in fact let the husband, or boyfriend, cut the cord so he wasn’t besieged by all the people there.
An ambulance then arrived and took them to Moncton Hospital, which was less than 10 kilometres away.
