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Unusual cannot begin to describe the feelings felt by Lombard couple Jennifer Stringer and Rick Tresselt, who brought their third child into the world early Monday morning on their living room floor.
Their first visitor to see their new daughter was Lombard Firefighter/Paramedic Jack Shafer.
That’s the same Jack Shafer who helped deliver the couple’s second child in a Lombard ambulance 18 months earlier.
“I was still on the phone with the 911 operator and I saw him walk through the door and I said ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,’” Tresselt said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, where mom and baby were healthy and resting.
Stringer said she started feeling pains about midnight but waited until about 4:30 a.m. before she thought she couldn’t wait any longer.
“I thought I was in the clear and had enough time,” Stringer said. “By that point the paramedics hadn’t arrived but the baby was coming out.”
Tresselt got down on the living room floor, and with the telephone held tightly between his shoulder and ear, listened to the instructions given by the 911 dispatcher. Devin Leigh was born into his arms that morning.
“Just seeing a new life come out like that right there on my living room floor... it was just remarkable,” Tresselt said.
Cue Shafer, who was working one of his two shifts this month.
“I heard the address and what the call was for and was 80 or 90 percent sure it was the same house,” Shafer said.
“He looked like a deer caught in headlights when he walked in my front door,” Stringer said.
After the initial shock wore off, Shafer helped cut the umbilical cord and took the newborn to the ambulance, marking his fourth delivery in three years on the job, the most of anyone in the department.
“The second we pulled up in front of the house I shook my head,” Shafer said. “I wanted to hit my partner because he had been joking with me earlier in the shift about delivering another baby.”
The first delivery was about 18 months ago, when paramedics were called to the couple’s home for a woman in labor. The paramedics began to take Stringer to the same Downers Grove hospital, but didn’t make it in time. Sydney, the couple’s second child, was delivered by Shafer in a ambulance stopped near 22nd Street and Highland Avenue.
Stringer said the 27-year-old paramedic is “like family” now, but he has no more deliveries to worry about because their family is complete.
“This is going to be it; this is the last one,” Tresselt said.
Unusual cannot begin to describe the feelings felt by Lombard couple Jennifer Stringer and Rick Tresselt, who brought their third child into the world early Monday morning on their living room floor.
Their first visitor to see their new daughter was Lombard Firefighter/Paramedic Jack Shafer.
That’s the same Jack Shafer who helped deliver the couple’s second child in a Lombard ambulance 18 months earlier.
“I was still on the phone with the 911 operator and I saw him walk through the door and I said ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,’” Tresselt said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, where mom and baby were healthy and resting.
Stringer said she started feeling pains about midnight but waited until about 4:30 a.m. before she thought she couldn’t wait any longer.
“I thought I was in the clear and had enough time,” Stringer said. “By that point the paramedics hadn’t arrived but the baby was coming out.”
Tresselt got down on the living room floor, and with the telephone held tightly between his shoulder and ear, listened to the instructions given by the 911 dispatcher. Devin Leigh was born into his arms that morning.
“Just seeing a new life come out like that right there on my living room floor... it was just remarkable,” Tresselt said.
Cue Shafer, who was working one of his two shifts this month.
“I heard the address and what the call was for and was 80 or 90 percent sure it was the same house,” Shafer said.
“He looked like a deer caught in headlights when he walked in my front door,” Stringer said.
After the initial shock wore off, Shafer helped cut the umbilical cord and took the newborn to the ambulance, marking his fourth delivery in three years on the job, the most of anyone in the department.
“The second we pulled up in front of the house I shook my head,” Shafer said. “I wanted to hit my partner because he had been joking with me earlier in the shift about delivering another baby.”
The first delivery was about 18 months ago, when paramedics were called to the couple’s home for a woman in labor. The paramedics began to take Stringer to the same Downers Grove hospital, but didn’t make it in time. Sydney, the couple’s second child, was delivered by Shafer in a ambulance stopped near 22nd Street and Highland Avenue.
Stringer said the 27-year-old paramedic is “like family” now, but he has no more deliveries to worry about because their family is complete.
“This is going to be it; this is the last one,” Tresselt said.
