A baby being born on the side of the road might seem like something people have nightmares about, but it was completely real when it happened last week to Hillsboro mother Sabrina Magee.
Lisa Hart, Magee’s mother, also of Hillsboro, said the incident happened on their drive back to Hillsboro from Lake Erie on Sunday, July 10. Hart said she and her daughter left the lake in separate vehicles, with Magee and her fiance leaving 10 minutes before Hart and her husband.
Hart said they drove for about an hour until Magee called her to say that she was having contractions. According to Hart, Magee said that the hospital was too far apart from where they were and that the two were tracking each other on their phones to see determine exactly where they were.
Hart said there was a point where her phone was getting ready to die and she messaged Magee to refresh the location, but Magee didn’t respond. She also said Magee didn’t respond to a phone call. Hart said that the last location they got from Magee was when she was getting off Interstate 71 and onto S.R. 68, which Hart’s husband said was what they were just about to do.
She said that once the pair got onto the other road, they saw Magee’s fiance in the ditch and thought he was vomiting. However, she said he was actually in the diaper bag looking for a nasal aspirator and that Magee already had birthed the baby. But it wasn’t breathing.
“He (Magee’s fiance) was talking to 911 and so I took off running and when I got right up to Sabrina’s car, she just put the baby’s nose and mouth in her mouth and just suctioned it out and the baby started breathing,” Hart said. “So, the 911 operator’s telling us what to do. We need to hear her crying. She needs to be crying really loud and it was just chaotic. But finally the sheriff came and he grabbed the baby and he said, ‘If this ever happens again, this is what you need to do.’ And he starts smacking her butt and she started crying.”
After that, Hart said Magee and the baby were taken to the hospital in an ambulance. She also said that Magee and the baby got back from the hospital on Tuesday, July 12, and were both doing well.
“That’s the main thing,” Hart said.
She said the baby was a girl that was given the name Belle Anna Mae. Hart also said she thought it was 11:44 a.m. when Magee’s fiance called 911, so that was recorded as the baby’s birth time.
Hart said that it was “total chaos” in the moment and that her adrenaline is “still high” from the incident.
“I don’t know, you just want to cry about it because you know how lucky you was that everything played out as it did. … It’s just a pretty intense moment, you know,” Hart said. “That’s not something you see every day or deal with every day, you know what I mean… You know, I told Sabrina — she didn’t want it all public — and I said, ‘Look, you might save another baby by getting this out there.’“
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
