With guidance from a 911 operator, a man delivered his daughter on the side of a busy Ontario highway Monday morning.
“It was scary, but it was exciting,” Nicole Biondo told CTV Toronto while cradling her new daughter from a hospital bed. “There’s so many emotions that go through your mind at that time because you’re not expecting it.”
After Nicole started having contractions, the Biondos were on their way to Markham Stouffville Hospital Monday morning when they got caught in dense traffic on Highway 404, near Elgin Mills Road. As their car crawled at a snail’s pace, Nicole’s contractions became more frequent and intense. That’s when her husband Joe called 911.
“She started asking me, do I have a string and a shoelace and towel?” Joe Biondo said of the 911 operator. “And I thought, ‘What’s going on? I’m not delivering this baby!’”
Two weeks before her due date, the baby didn’t give her parents any choice. With the help of the 911 operator, Joe got to work on the side of the highway.
“Before you knew it, the head was there,” he said. “And I said, ‘Okay, I see the head now.’ And she goes, ‘Okay, support the neck.’ I said, ‘Okay, what am I supporting?’ Before you know it, there’s the baby in my hands -- there’s Martina in my hands!”
The healthy baby was delivered inside the family’s brand new vehicle. The Biondos had just upgraded from a sedan to an SUV a few months prior in preparation for having a new child in their lives.
“We're going to need another detailing, that's for sure,” Joe said.
An ambulance arrived about a minute after the delivery and rushed mother and daughter to the hospital.
Baby Martina joins big sister Amelia in the world. Their father is already thinking of nicknames for the new addition to their family.
“Maybe we should name her Elgin Mills or 404 since that's where we stopped,” he joked.
With a report from CTV Toronto’s Tracy Tong
