WAYLAND — Chief Neil McPherson is pleased to share that Wayland Fire Department members who helped deliver a baby girl at a resident’s home earlier this week had the chance to talk about the experience and reunite with the family.
Firefighter Todd Winner, Lt. Dean Casali, and Capt. Daniel Buentello, all registered emergency medical technicians, along with dispatcher Krystal Cosgrove, greeted baby Nuha, mother SafaKidwai, father Shahir Ahmed and sister Nura, 4, on Thursday, May 19, at Wayland Fire Headquarters,
“The majority of our calls are a bad day for the person we are going to help. This call was certainly a different EMS call,” Lt. Casali said. “We realized very quickly that the mother would be delivering the baby in the house. We were prepared and had all our equipment out. We were hoping, and I am sure she was hoping too that she would get to the hospital, but it wasn’t in the cards that night.”
Added Firefighter Winner: “We trained for this, but it is different when you actually experience it in real life. We are very glad we were there.”
On Saturday, May 14, 2022, at 9:33 p.m., Wayland Fire was dispatched to a home on Edgewood Road. Expectant mother Kidwai had gone into labor with her second child. Dispatcher Cosgrove helped mom and dad stay calm over the phone until the firefighters arrived on scene.
Within minutes, the firefighters arrived and found that baby Nuha was not interested in waiting for a ride to the hospital. They immediately set up their equipment and with the help of Brewster Ambulance paramedics assisted in delivering the baby moments later. Both mother and child were transported to a local hospital.
“We know they are heroes in more than one way, but that night they showed us another way of heroism by helping deliver my baby girl,” Ahmed said.
“We are just very thankful. I don’t know how we would have managed had we got in the car ourselves. That situation could have been a lot worse,” Kidwai said.
Chief McPherson presented the firefighters with a special pink stork pin to commemorate the day they helped safely bring a new life into the world. Nuha’s family also thanked the firefighters with a cake.
“Firefighters don’t often get calls to deliver babies,” Chief McPherson said. “But every member of the Department trains regularly on a wide variety of emergency responses. That training kicked in on Saturday night, and thanks to their quick response, baby Nuha was delivered healthy and safe.”
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