OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — An Oklahoma mother is thanking first responders who helped her deliver her baby boy on the side of a rainy turnpike.

“The King above gave me a little King,” said DeDe Jackson.

She and her son, King, just days old, reunited this week for the first time with Natalie Daigle, who helped bring him into the world in an ambulance on the side of a rainy turnpike more than a week before his due date.

“He wanted to come on Juneteenth!” said Jackson, whose water broke while she was in her car Friday morning. “I was like, ‘Oh, no.'”  

Jackson called 911.

“His head was coming out, and it was just so scary,” she said. 

Daigle and an Emergency Medical Services Authority teammate responded to the call.

“It really hit that, oh, she’s about to have this baby. We need to get there,” Daigle said. “We need to be there.”

They put her in the ambulance and headed for a local hospital, but while on the Kilpatrick Turnpike, King got tired of waiting.

“He came out ready to see this world,” Daigle said. “He had the loudest little baby scream, and that’s always the biggest relief when you hear that first cry.”

King is Jackson’s third child, but his arrival was the least conventional.

“I’m just so thankful that I made it through,” said Jackson.

It was Daigle’s first delivery.

“To be the one guiding him into this world, I guess is really, it’s just such a beautiful thing,” she said. “I’m at a loss for words at how happy I am that he is such a happy, healthy, beautiful baby boy.”

Said King’s mother: “I’m going to take all this as a testimony, and I know this right here was a blessing because I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for these EMT workers and the fire department and everyone to come to my rescue.”