Alvarado Woman Gives Birth Along Road

An Alvarado woman gave birth along the side of the road when her baby wouldn’t wait to make it to the hospital.

"I was hoping we were going to make it somewhere and I was trying to keep the baby in,” said Ewa Staniszewska.

Her husband pulled off to the side of Farm-to-Market Road 917 and County Road 616 and called 911.

Paramedic Donny Hallmark of Johnson County Emergency Services District 1 arrived minutes later.

"A lot of times when we run these calls they don't actually deliver,” Hallmark said.

Staniszewska said she was panicking until Hallmark and the other first responders got there.

“Thank God he was there,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done without them being there.”

The baby wasn’t due for another month, and Staniszewska went into false labor just hours earlier.

So when she thought she was going into labor again, she decided to take a bath to relax.

Suddenly, she said, she realized she needed to get to the hospital.

But the baby had other plans.

She tried to make herself as comfortable as possible — in her PT Cruiser.

"The baby was out within two or three minutes and just started crying right away,” she said. “It was amazing."

Hallmark said in 10 years as a paramedic, this emergency delivery was a first.

“It really happened fast,” Hallmark said. “We really didn’t have time for much.”

One of his colleagues updated dispatchers about what had happened.

“Advise CareFlight we now have two patients,” the firefighter said in a recorded radio transmission.

The newborn, named Daniel Christopher, is a healthy 5 pound 1 ounce baby boy. 

“We all breathed a pretty good sigh of relief,” Hallmark said. “She did great.”

Staniszewska said she wanted to thank the medics who helped her. She and her son are doing fine, and she has no plans to repeat the experience.

"Once in a lifetime,” she said. “I'm not going to do it again."

Both mother and baby are doing well and resting in the hospital.

Contact Us