Premed Student Gets Chance to Play Obstetrician--and Delivers

John Delgado, a Cal State Northridge premed student, was leaving Olive View Medical Center, where he works helping to care for infants, when he heard screaming in the parking lot outside the emergency room.

“There was a woman sprawled out in a car and she was screaming. She was obviously pregnant and obviously contracting,” said Delgado, 29.

So he did what until then he had only seen others do.

He delivered a baby.

The woman had been rushed to the county-run hospital in Sylmar by family members but didn’t make it to the emergency room in time.

After Delgado and two hospital X-ray technicians ran to the car, which was parked about 100 yards from the emergency room entrance, other hospital workers rolled up a wheelchair to take her inside. But it was too late.

“I asked the grandmother-to-be, ‘Has she broken water?’ and she said, ‘Yes, and she’s been contracting every minute,’ and I said, ‘Oh boy,’ ” Delgado said.

Delgado told the woman to take deep breaths. As hospital workers rushed for a gurney, Delgado saw the baby’s head emerging. “It was evident that the only person to deliver the baby was going to be me,” he said.

Once the baby girl was born, he checked to make sure that the umbilical cord was not wrapped around her neck and choking her. All was well, he said. “I remember yelling to her, ‘It’s a girl! It’s a girl!’

“She was very happy.”

Mother and daughter were doing well Monday, hospital officials said. The hospital declined to give the mother’s name, citing a patient confidentiality policy.

Delgado said he kept calm during the delivery, putting into practice his two years of training under experienced doctors and nurses as a technician specializing in infants’ breathing problems.

Delgado said he had assisted in hundreds of high-risk deliveries but had never performed one himself.

“There was really no fear,” he said. “I was just looking at this woman and I said, ‘She is pregnant. She’s going to deliver. Let’s do it.’ ”

As for his career plans, Delgado said he’s interested in becoming an obstetrician now.

“I know I can do the procedures,” he said.