When an adult male civilian rushed into a New Jersey police station, it’s anyone’s guess what the two officers inside imagined was the matter—a shooting, a fire, a bad car accident.
What they almost certainly would not have guessed—and wouldn’t have known because the man didn’t speak English, was that they would spend a brief few minutes on duty acting as midwives.
Benjamin Haines and Gabriel Chiarelli of New Jersey’s Woodstown Police Department (WPD) followed the man, who was communicating only with shouts and hand gestures to the back of his car.
Opening the door, there was a woman—also unable to speak English—in labor.
“We weren’t really expecting that—especially the baby coming out when we opened the car door,” Chiarelli recalled to 6ABC in early December. Thinking quickly, the officers produced their phones and opened Google Translate to begin giving instructions, and when that failed, used hand gestures instead.
“So we really couldn’t say much, but I just told her to breathe and push, and she did and out came the head,” Haines explained.
After that it was a short few pushes before mom and baby were wrapped in blankets, a healthy girl having been delivered. Medics arrived on scene by the time the officers had concluded their civic duty to take the family to the hospital.
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Neither ABC nor People, which later reported on the story, managed to get ahold of the WPD for additional information.
Both men agreed that, despite having no training for such a procedure, it was exactly the kind of thing they signed up to the force to do—help people in need; their station chief agreeing that they responded excellently to the situation.
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