‘The Baby’s Not Waiting’: Medford Firefighters, Ambulance Crew Deliver Baby En Route to Hospital

The soon-to-be mother's contractions were only a few minutes apart, and Medford fire Captain Tom Brennan thought there was a good chance the baby wouldn't wait until they arrived at Massachusetts General Hospital.

"I knew if we made it we’d be lucky," Brennan said Wednesday.

Brennan and the other members of Ladder Company 2, Ed Nolan and Hugh McEleney, were the first responders to a medical call at a Grant Avenue home home about 3:30 a.m. Saturday where there was a 30 year-old woman in labor with her second child. She was loaded into an ambulance with two paramedics from Armstrong Ambulance in the back, Brennan driving and the woman's husband in the passenger seat. The ladder truck followed them on the way to the hospital.

They didn't get very far -- only the Fellsway -- when the paramedics told Brennan to stop the ambulance.

“They said, ‘the baby’s not waiting,’" Brennan said. "So I stopped the ambulance, got dad out of the front and we rolled up our sleeves and went to work."

At 3:57 a.m., the woman gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Jacob, and finally brought to the hospital. Brennan's wife, who is a nurse, was working at the woman's original destination in the Mass General obstetrics division.

"It's a small world," Brennan said.

This is the fourth time in the last month that a baby has been born in Medford en route to the hospital. It was the second time in Brennan's career that he helped deliver a baby.

"We don’t get them often," he said. "But we’re trained and prepared for it."