By Deke Farrow
The Modesto Bee
PATTERSON, Calif. — Deputy Kyle Briggs was met with quite the surprise Thursday morning in the back lot of the Patterson Police Services station: a husband with his wife, who was ready to give birth at any moment.
The deputy had just returned from a stolen-vehicle recovery. Right after he pulled into the lot, Maximo and Hermenegilda Nava drove up next to him.
“They spoke very little English, but I got that she was going into delivery, into labor,” said Briggs, 25.
He called for paramedics and firefighters, but the baby wouldn’t wait and was in the deputy’s hands as help arrived.
“I was trying to calm her down, telling her, ‘Don’t push,’ but then she had the big contraction. … I saw the head was out, I saw this big ball of hair,” said the three-year veteran of the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department.
The incident unfolded about 8:50 a.m. Hearing the call Briggs put out, Patterson Police Services Sgt. Aaron Costello stepped into the parking lot shared by the police and fire departments.
“I was out there about 30 seconds and saw the fire chief, so I whistled and asked him to get his guys out there.”
But Costello estimated it was probably less than five minutes between the couple hailing Briggs and the baby being born. The mother was draped during delivery, he said, and when fire and medical responders got there, she revealed that the child’s head was already through the birth canal.
“Within seconds, the baby was fully out,” Costello said.
Thursday morning has started off with a new baby. Deputy Briggs arrived to the back parking lot of Patterson Police...
Posted by Patterson Police Services on Thursday, December 17, 2015
Fire Department Division Chief Jeff Gregory called Capt. Mike Ambrosino and firefighter Jeff Scott to the parking lot.
“Mom was doing good. She apparently had been in labor a while,” Ambrosino said. “Officer Briggs was there tending to the mom, who was still sitting in the car when my partner and I came up to get some information.”
Ambrosino said he didn’t realize how far along the delivery was.
“Twenty seconds later, the baby was right there. Officer Briggs was the first to have hands on him, and he handed the baby off to me, and we started doing our normal routine.”
The cold of the morning didn’t complicate the delivery or harm the baby, Ambrosino said.
“The parents had a blanket there, and we put one of our sterile trauma pads around the baby and wrapped a blanket around that.”
Medics administered oxygen and otherwise checked on the health of the baby and mother, then took them to Emanuel Medical Center in Turlock for additional care.
The Navas have lived in Patterson for about six years. They have two other children, a 7-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, both born in hospitals.
Hermenegilda Nava said she started feeling contractions early Thursday morning and went to Doctors Medical Center in Modesto about 3 a.m. She was monitored at the hospital until about 6, when she was sent home because hospital staff members thought the birth wouldn’t likely happen soon.
The couple made the half-hour drive back to Patterson. But as soon as they got home, Hermenegilda felt the contractions again. This time, she said, the pain was much stronger.
“My husband told me we were going to head back to the hospital,” she said in Spanish. “But I told him we’re not going to make it to the hospital.”
That’s when Maximo came up with a solution.
“He said, ‘I know exactly where I can take you.’ Then he told me he was going to take me down to the police station.”
When they arrived, the baby’s head was already crowning.
“So I knew then I was going to have to give birth in the (front) seat of this car,” she said.
She gave birth to her son, Isaias. Both mother and child were recuperating Thursday evening at a hospital.
The baby’s birth was the first Briggs had ever seen other than in video, he said.
“The only training I had was in POST Academy, police officer standards and training,” which addressed what to do in the event of a breech birth or if the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck, he said. Fortunately, this birth had no such complications.
Costello said Briggs handled the delivery well.
“He was not flustered,” Costello said. “When I went to the academy, I was scared to death when they showed us a childbirth video. That’s the last thing I wanted to happen.”
Right after the delivery, Briggs texted his fiancée, mother and sister about what had happened. Thursday’s was a busy shift, including a shooting in Patterson.
“We were slammed,” Briggs said, but “I would say it (the delivery) was the event of the day.”
Bee staff writer Rosalio Ahumada contributed to this report.
Copyright 2015 The Modesto Bee