By David Cho and Tom Jackman, The Washington Post
Fairfax County police officers Mark Lewis and Dan Rosario have heard just about every excuse from commuters who sneak into the carpool lanes on Interstate 95 during rush hour.
So when a young couple in a sport-utility vehicle pulled over and yelled out that they were about to have a baby - right there in the HOV-3 lanes - the officers first thought it was just another bogus story.
Except in this case, 24-year-old Brandy Bearden’s contractions were 90 seconds apart, and she was minutes away from giving birth.
The two motorcycle squad officers, who started Tuesday’s rush hour catching HOV violators, ended up helping Bearden deliver Hannah Elizabeth. Healthy and weighing nearly seven pounds, she entered the world at 7:10 a.m. in the back seat of her parents’ Honda Pilot as rubberneckers gawked.
After the delivery, Rosario turned Hannah over and she began breathing. “She cried and I thought, ‘This is a good sign,’ ” the officer said yesterday.
Murphy’s Law seemed to be in full effect Tuesday morning when Army Staff Sgt. Rich Bearden, 27, tried to get his wife, in labor with their second child, from their home in Woodbridge to the emergency room at Fort Belvoir.
Brandy Bearden had gone into labor shortly after 6:30 a.m., her husband said, and the couple sped to the entrance of I-95.
It was a virtual parking lot.
As his wife began to scream that the baby was coming, Rich Bearden switched over to the HOV lanes. “We might have been driving slightly above the speed limit,” he joked.
“We decided to take HOV,” Brandy Bearden said yesterday as she cradled her rush-hour baby in Inova Fairfax Hospital’s maternity ward. “We didn’t have three people yet, but she was coming fast.”
Yesterday, Rich Bearden was calmly playing with the couple’s 3-year-old daughter, Maryssa. Tuesday, he had been multitasking. At the same time he was comforting his wife, Bearden was trying to figure out the fastest way to the hospital. He simultaneously was calling 911 - but was getting no reception on his cell phone -- and timing the contractions on a stopwatch.
As they neared the entrance to the Fairfax County Parkway, they knew they weren’t going to make it. The contractions had hit a minute and a half. And there was no sign of traffic letting up.
Fortunately, Officers Lewis and Rosario were stationed on the merge ramp where they could easily spot HOV violators.
“They were counting whether cars had three people inside. I think they were going to give us a ticket,” Brandy Bearden said. “I don’t think they believed us at first. They just looked at us like, ‘What is she talking about?’ ”
When they realized it was a bona fide emergency, the officers radioed for an ambulance and moved Brandy to the back seat. Then, she yelled out, “Okay, here it comes.”
“The cop said, ‘Hold on a second,’ ” Brandy recalled, “and I told him, ‘I can’t.’ It was really hard not to push.”
Three minutes later, a child was born.
“I really didn’t want to have the birth of a child inside a vehicle in 30-degree weather on the side of the highway,” Rosario said. “But nature said we were going to have a baby delivered.”
Both officers had been present for the births of their own children but had not taken quite so active a role, Rosario said. They had limited police academy training on what to do in such situations and left the cutting of the umbilical cord to the paramedics who arrived a few minutes later.
By the end of the ordeal, everyone was healthy and happy.
“Thank goodness for the police and paramedics and everybody who helped us out,” Brandy Bearden said. “I’m just glad they were checking HOV lanes that day.”