DIAMOND SPRINGS, Calif — As an engineer paramedic for the Diamond Springs-El Dorado Fire Protection District, Shawn Kellogg is prepared for anything – well, almost anything. The first responder delivered his own son in the parking lot of the hospital.
On June 1, Shawn and his wife, Shantel, were expecting the birth of Wyatt, their second child.
After a trip to Kaiser Roseville Medical Center, they were told Shantel’s contractions didn’t indicate labor was imminent.
“We still didn’t have the pattern that they wanted with my contractions,” she told KTXL.
Then in the late afternoon the next day, as the family was driving, it was go time — but time wasn’t on their side.
“He asked me, ‘What do you need?’ And I said, ‘Out of this car,’” Shantel said. “And he looked at me and he goes, ‘K, what do you want?’ And I said, ‘An ambulance. We’re not going to make it anywhere.’”
So, Shawn called dispatch and told the operator to have a medic crew meet them at a fire station. Although he works at a different firehouse, the responding medics already knew him.
“They recognized me and said, ‘Well, do you want this call?’ ‘Yeah, I’ll take it!’” he recalled.
The destination was Mercy Hospital in Folsom, but Wyatt wouldn’t wait. So, in the hospital parking lot, Shawn delivered his own son.
It all happened in front of some very intrigued onlookers.
“In the process of delivering him, the back door is opened up. Blue ravine’s back there and about half a dozen or a dozen nurses were out there as well,” Shawn said.
While it may not have been the ideal circumstance to welcome a child into the world, Shantel said there’s no one she trusts more than her husband. There’s also nothing she’ll remember more vividly than that bizarre and beautiful moment.
“When I think about delivering him I think about the ambulance doors open, him and then trees and cars going by,” she said.
Wyatt was born at 6:21 p.m. June 21 is also the month and day that Shawn and Shantel met at the El Dorado County Fair nearly 15 years ago.