A historic blizzard hit New England last weekend, and while most emergency responders were focused on snow removal, some members of the Massachusetts National Guard were helping out in a much different way. Called into action during the early hours of February 9, when the storm was at its worst, the Guardsmen helped a local woman give birth, reports The Boston Globe.
A call came into local emergency services at around 2:30 a.m. from Ericka Bueno, who reported she had started going into labor. At this point, snow was pummeling the Bay State, but the National Guard’s Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 181st Infantry Regiment helped first responders get to her residence in around 10 minutes. After delivering Bueno’s child in her home, emergency responder escorted her to the hospital.
“It’s just good to know that we had so many people behind us – that it wasn’t just the EMTs, that we had the National Guard there,” Bueno told the Globe. “I was just a regular person giving birth, and they went and they shoveled us out and they made sure that we made it to the hospital,” according to the Globe.
Given the scope of the storm, the response time and relative ease of the delivery was certainly impressive. On February 9, Boston received 14.8 inches of snow, the most in a one-day period the city has ever had.