Firefighter Delivers Baby at Bou

Chad and Terri Schouest celebrate their newborn daughter, Taylor, at Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma Friday evening.

Captain Tony J. Pellegrin
A.K.A: "Dr. Tony"

BOURG -- During his 25 years, firefighter Tony Pellegrin’s hands have held wrenches, brooms, hoses and big drills. When a couple in distress pulled up to his fire station Friday morning, Pellegrin’s hands held something different. They cradled the head of a baby as she was born on a makeshift delivery table in the firehouse break room.

Taylor Schouest was born at 9 a.m. weighing 6.03 pounds. Beating her March 16 due date by almost two weeks, Taylor was also too impatient to wait for her parents to arrive at the hospital.

The father, Chad Schouest, 20, said his wife, Terri, 21, was showering in their Golden Meadow home when her water broke. He got her out of the bathtub, grabbed the few things he could remember that she would need and drove Terri toward the hospital.

The trip from the house to Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma would have covered about 40 miles.

"She said she could feel the baby’s head," Chad Schouest said in a telephone interview. "I tried to call 911, but my cell phone died. I saw the fire station and I knew the guys could do more for her than I could do."

When the Schouests arrived at the fire station, Pellegrin’s day as a paid firefighter had barely begun.

"I just finished cutting the grass. I was getting a cup of coffee and the guy ran in and said his wife was in the car in labor," Pellegrin said.

Pellegrin called Acadian Ambulance and brought Terri inside the firehouse. "We put her on the ground and I checked the baby. She said she could feel it. I looked and the baby’s head was starting to crown," Pellegrin said.

The ambulance arrived within five minutes and the paramedic finished delivering the baby less than a minute later, Schouest said.

The baby came so fast that Pellegrin didn’t have time to dress in the sterile, green hospital dressing. The pants of the suit lay crisp and clean on the break table at the end of the day. Schouest estimated the baby was born within 6 minutes of entering the fire station.

"It just happened so fast, right on the floor," Pellegrin said. "In that situation you are the doctor. That’s what I was thinking the whole time, just let the baby and mama be okay."

The Acadian crew transported mother and child to Terrebonne General, where they were joined by relatives who praised Pellegrin and everyone else who helped.

"Terri’s feeling fine, she just fed the baby," the proud father said mid-afternoon Friday. "She was very hungry."