 | | | Back row, from left: Engineer Paramedic Jon Ford, Firefighter Paramedic Stephen Gehling, Firefighter Paramedic Anthony Stephens, Firefighter Chris Mathews; front row: Sameer Rathod, holding Vivek, and Chandni Rathod; not pictured: Captain Sean McGee. Photo Tod Fierner
| | | | | | The dispatch into Moraga-Orinda Fire District Station 45 on the evening of January 13 alerted the company to a medical emergency. A woman was in labor and delivery was imminent.
Captain Sean McGee and his firefighter/paramedic unit dashed out of the station, heading for Stanton Avenue in Orinda. The crew arrived at the home in three minutes and rushed to the master bedroom, where Chandni Rathod was seconds away from giving birth to her first child.
"I've delivered four babies in the field," said lead paramedic Stephen Gehling. "This one was easy." The baby was already crowning, and at 10:17 p.m., after Gehling applied his training and experience in emergency childbirth, into his hands arrived a 5-pound, 15-ounce boy, Vivek.
"He was seven days early," said Rathod, recalling that she was in a fog throughout the delivery process. The father, Sameer Rathod, said that he remained calm but joked with firefighters, "If you guys were even a minute or two later..."
After the delivery, the MOFD crew drove the mother and baby to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center for follow-up care.
The Rathods and the firefighters met at Station 45 on April 1 for a reunion, and Fire Chief Randall Bradley presented an MOFD Birth Certificate to the family and an MOFD Live Birth Award to the delivery crew.
"This was one of the fun days of our job," said Bradley.
"And we are eternally grateful," said the new dad.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA