SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In his 20 years as a paramedic, Mickey Huber assisted in two emergency deliveries. But to him, the most memorable birth is the one that didn’t happen on his watch.
Huber was helping people evacuate from the terrifying wildfire that tore through the Northern California town of Paradise on Nov. 8 when he heard on the scanner about a pregnant woman going into premature labor.
Anastasia Skinner’s baby wasn’t due for another month, but she began to feel contractions as she grabbed her mother’s two dogs and raced to escape the fast-moving blaze. The flames had already hit her car by the time she fought the panic-driven traffic jam out of town and reached a gas station, honking the horn and screaming for help.
“I knew I wasn’t going to make it,” Skinner, 25, said during a phone interview on Friday. “I called my husband and told him goodbye, tell all the kids I love them and make sure they remember me.”
Because Skinner was having a high-risk pregnancy after suffering two miscarriages and other complications related to an inherited disorder, Huber said she may not have made it if she went into full-blown labor.
He arranged a caravan that included three police vehicles to rush Skinner to an ambulance. Then he jumped in the back seat, where he kept her calm until she reached a hospital where her labor was stopped.
“He was sweet. He told me, ‘I’m a guy. I don’t know what this feels like for you, but I’ll try to help you get you through it,’ ” Skinner said. “Then he would yell at people outside of the car, waving his hat and telling them to get out of the way.”
“My goal was to keep her breathing and get her down the hill,” Huber said. “Two of my ambulance crews were trapped by the fire moments before I got to Anastasia so there was a lot of doubt, a lot of worry.”
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