A South Florida woman who was on her way to the hospital to deliver twins had to give birth to one in her car after she was involved in a crash Friday morning.
Thankfully for the new mother Jessica Stanley, a nurse who was on her way to work was right behind her.
The improbable sequence of events happened around 6 a.m. in southwest Miami-Dade, as Betty Horne, a gastroenterology technician at Baptist Hospital, was making her way to work.
Stanley and her fiancee Antavian Milton were rushing to Jackson South Community Hospital from their home in the Goulds after her water broke, the hospital said.
Meanwhile, Horne said she was driving on Southwest 102nd Avenue when she saw the car in front of her struck while making a turn onto 152nd Street across from Coral Reef High School. No one was injured.
Milton jumped out of the car as she ran over to help. Horne peered inside the car and saw the woman laying back in the passenger seat, her legs apart.
"I saw the guy jump out, frantic. He said 'I'm gonna have a baby, she's gonna have twins,'" Horne said. "I look, and I saw the baby's head, just the hair."
Horne said she grabbed a towel from her car and put her hands under the baby's head and slowly brought him out.
"I said 'your baby's doing fine, breathe nice and easy,'" Horne said. "I took the baby out and second or two, the baby didn't say anything, and so I took my fingers, my index fingers and swiped the bavk of the baby's mouth, and he started crying ... said 'cry, baby, cry.'"
Horne said she wrapped the baby in the towel. The paramedics arrived and clamped the umbilical cord and when they put the mother on the stretcher, Horne gave her her baby, which the couple named Antavian II. He weighed 7 pounds and 13 ounces.
"It was amazing, I was on an adrenaline rush," she said.
Officials said Stanley was taken to the hospital where she delivered the other baby by cesarean section. That baby was named Antavian III and weighed 7 pounds and 7 ounces.
Horne said she may have gotten a little help from a passerby who stopped and prayed next to the car as she helped the mother give birth.
"That gave me a little courage, I thought 'Hey, God's got this under control,'" she said.
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The mother and babies are doing well.
"I don't even know what a hero is. I tell you, I don't feel like a hero. I feel that that's something that we all got to do for each other. We all got to help each other," Horne said.
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