The Marshall County Sheriff’s Department and other first responders helped a woman give birth during last week’s blizzard.
Deputy Joseph McMillen says he was concerned after getting the call because he had gotten stuck in the snow drifts trying to answer an earlier call. “This is going to be a big deal because I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to get to them in that remote part of the county,” he says. Sergeant McMillen says after busting through a few snow drifts on the gravel road, the thought of walking did cross his mind. “As I’m driving westbound on 140th I start to process, okay this is going to be me walking,” he says. “So I kind of made that decision before I even got stuck if I did get stuck and once my vehicles disabled I didn’t really think about it.”
Sergeant McMillen approached a house with the front porch light on, and it turned out to be the correct house with the woman and her husband waiting. “I could tell that she was in the advanced stages of labor based on my experience…so I kind of knew that all right this baby’s gonna come soon and I looked at Dad and I said ‘Alright dad it’s gonna be me and you nobody else is coming’,” McMillen says.
McMillen says dispatchers were working to get more help to the farmhouse, and the Clemmons Fire Chief used his tractor to clear a path for the ambulance. “Me and dad are down there, we’re working with mom and I see a tractor go by. and I know there’s an ambulance behind that tractor,” he says. “The feeling of relief is almost indescribable. You know that there’s an advanced level of care there. It’s no longer just Sergeant McMillan. It’s now Sergeant McMillan in whatever level of care showed up, which turns out it was a paramedic. So watching them come in the back door was they were like angels such an answer to prayer.” He says he assisted the paramedics with the birth.
Sergeant McMillen credits dispatchers for finding help, and for working with the woman and her husband before he arrived. McMillen says they are not releasing the name of the family.
(By Zachary Tomesch, KFJB, Marshalltown)