By Karl Puckett, The Sun Newspapers (Minneapolis/Saint Paul)
Brooklyn Park, Minn. Officer Timothy Mitchell helped deliver what he called “a precious gift” Christmas Eve morning, just minutes after arriving at a townhome in Brooklyn Park and finding a mother in labor.
“It was pretty neat,” Mitchell said Dec. 26, two days after he found himself face-to-face with a nervous mother who was moments from having a baby. “It was something different.”
Brooklyn Park police received a call from a woman in labor at a townhome at 7:43 a.m. Dec. 24. Mitchell, 31, was five blocks away and beat everybody to the scene, including paramedics.
He knocked on the door a few times and finally Mary Warren answered.
“Warren was a little worked up, a little scared,” Mitchell said.
“She also seemed surprised to see a police officer, rather then emergency medical personnel,” Mitchell said.
But Warren’s delivery was right on time. The due date was Dec. 24. Her water had broken. The officer and the mother went to a lower level of the townhome and Mitchell had her lie down on a mattress on the floor.
Brooklyn Park police officers are equipped to deal with such medical emergencies. They carry an OB kit -- a blanket, gloves, pads, a scissors and clip for clamping and cutting a baby’s umbilical cord, and a suction device for clearing a child’s throat.
Mitchell put on his gloves and a pad between the woman and mattress.
She kept saying to me, “I think the head is coming out,” Mitchell recalled.
“Officers take a first responder training course,” he said, “and they kind of teach what to do and what to look for.”
As an officer, Mitchell had been on calls before in which mothers were about to deliver at home, and as a father, he was present when his daughter, now 1 1/2 years, was born.
But Mitchell had never done a delivery himself, and the assistance he gave Dec. 24 was not in a controlled, hospital environment.
Warren asked if she should push, and Mitchell responded, “Yes.” He comforted her and said everything would turn out OK.
Warren put out her arms and the officer grabbed her hands.
“She put the death grip on my hands,” Mitchell said. A short time later, Mitchell guided the baby out.
“She started crying right away,” he added.
He told Warren, “‘You got a little baby girl here,’” then he cleared the baby’s mouth with a suction.
Moments later paramedics and other officers arrived.
From the time Mitchell arrived until the baby’s first breath “was maybe three minutes,” Mitchell said.
Paramedics cut the umbilical cord, and Warren and her newborn were transported to Hennepin County Medical Center. Both appeared to be doing fine, police said.
Mitchell, a native of Milwaukee, was sworn in as a Brooklyn Park police officer in December 2002. He spent seven years with Milwaukee police and served three years in the U.S. Army.
“It was a good change of pace from the usual calls we get,” Mitchell said.