Baby on Board and Driving

Woman Gives Birth to Son while Driving

May 23,2010
By: Bethany Wesley, Bemidji Pioneer

Joseph Phillips ran into the North Country Regional Hospital emergency room early Wednesday morning calling for help because his newborn son was in the car with his mother. The hospital staff was perplexed when, after running outside, there was no one visible in the passenger seat. "The other side, the other side," Phillips recalled shouting, explaining that the mother and child were in the driver’s seat.

The response from the hospital staff was unanimous: "She was driving?"

The birth of Joseph Dominick Phillips will certainly be a story his parents recall for years. Amanda (Norgaard) McBride, 29, was working her usual shift at TEAM Industries in Bagley when she began to get really uncomfortable after about 11:30 p.m.

"I said, 'I gotta' go!" and ran out," Amanda said. Her due date was predicted to be between May 15-18, so the impending birth was right on time. She went and picked up Phillips, 33, and she began to drive from their home between Shevlin and Bagley to North Country Regional Hospital in Bemidji.

Amanda drove the 2005 red Chevrolet Cobalt because Phillips suffers seizures.

"It wasn’t really that bad," Amanda said of the labor pains. At about Wilton, her water broke.

"She yelled at me to grab the wheel," Phillips said. "And then, all of a sudden, I heard this little waaa (cry)." Amanda said she had managed to pull down her pants after her water broke and "...the baby just came right out" she said.

Joseph was born at 12:20 a.m. with a full head of dark hair. He weighed 8 pounds and was 18.5 inches long. Amanda held the newborn and turned on the heat in the vehicle as Phillips managed to steer them into the NCRH parking lot. Phillips did ask her if they should call 911, but Amanda was against that idea. She figured they would have to pull over and wait for ambulance in the same amount of time that it would take for them to finish the drive.

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