Dispatchers help deliver fourth baby

PALMER — Dispatchers have been delivering babies like crazy in Palmer — so much they’re about to start taking in donated diapers.

No, really, they’re going to set up a bin to collect donated diapers.

“Because of your recent success delivering babies, I hope you can help HeartReach deliver diapers by holding a diaper drive,” reads a letter dispatch supervisor Alaina Anderson received from Kris Spencer, Diaper Bank Coordinator for HeartReach Center in Wasilla.

Anderson shared that letter during a ceremony Friday to recognize the most recent dispatcher to telephonically aid in the deliver of a baby — Allie Foley.

In a write-up of the delivery — and the three others the center has been a part of in the past five months — Anderson says that the call came in on April 9.

“A woman report(ed) her daughter-in-law was in labor and delivery was imminent,” Anderson writes. “When the baby’s head started to crown, she explained to the caller that she was going to help them deliver the baby. “After the little boy was born she told the new grandmother congratulations,” Anderson writes.

Foley seemed proud to receive her stork pin — Anderson has started a tradition at the center of distributing pins shaped like storks to dispatchers who deliver babies.

“It was definitely an interesting thing. It was scary, but also exciting,” Foley said.

The other three deliveries were:

Nov. 30, 2013, dispatcher Jeri Wallin helped deliver a little girl as medics arrived on scene.

Jan. 12, 2014, dispatcher Amber Church helped deliver a baby in the middle of the night.

Jan. 29, 2014, dispatcher Sarah Beranek helped deliver a baby that came out breech — feet first. The baby spent some time in the hospital, but was able to go home last month, according to Anderson’s narrative.

“All of our babies made it home,” Anderson told dispatchers and family members gathered Friday to watch Foley receive her pin.

And while it might seem like over-the-phone deliveries are common for Palmer dispatchers, they’re really not. Or at least they didn’t used to be. Anderson and one of the dispatchers did a little digging and discovered it had been seven years — 2006 — since the last time a dispatcher helped bring a baby into the world.

In that case, she said, the ambulance crew was called away from the dispatch center during a birthday party to assist a pregnant woman whose friend had pulled over on the side of the road en route to the hospital.

After the delivery, the medics returned to the dispatch center and finished their cake.

“That’s real birthday cake,” Anderson said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.