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2013 April 25 CTY - Honolulu Police Officer Stephen Keogh assisted in delivering a baby after a motorist and his wife asked for help on the H1 Freeway on Thursday. The motorcycle patrol officer has now helped in two roadside births. HSA PHOTO BY GEORGE F. LEE
Honolulu Police motorcycle officer Stephen Keogh speaks to reporters at Honolulu Police headquarters about delivering a baby on the H-1 Freeway during the morning rush hour. (Leila Fujimori/lfujimori@staradvertiser.com)
A Honolulu motorcycle police officer delivered a baby girl at the height of the morning commute on the H-1 Freeway this morning, police and paramedics said.
Paramedics assisted and the mother and baby, are doing well, an Emergency Services spokesperson said.
Officer Stephen Keogh said he delivered the baby in the front seat of the family’s Nissan pick-up truck. He says the baby’s parents were trying to make it to a hospital from their Waipahu home.
“I felt she (the mother) was in control and she did a fantastic job,” Keogh said.
While it was the mother’s third child, this was the second time Keogh delivered a baby while on duty on the freeway.
The baby didn’t yet have a name.
The baby was born at about 8 a.m. on the Koko Head-bound lanes of the H-1 Freeway near the Middle Street offramp.
A report by the traffic information company Inrix said the Middle Street merge area, where the baby was born is the worst stretch of road in Hawaii for traffic backups.
The Inrix report, released Wednesday, said it can take 27 minutes to travel four miles along the freeway between Middle and South Vineyard streets.
Two babies were born on the freeway last year. Paramedics helped to deliver a baby boy during rush hour on the H-1 Freeway on Sept. 5 near the Kunia Road off-ramp. Police were escorting the mother to the hospital in heavy traffic at about 7 a.m., but the birth was progressing too quickly so paramedics were called to help, according to Emergency Medical Services.
Paramedics and police helped deliver a baby on H-1 Freeway near an offramp in Honolulu on Aug. 31 when a 23-year-old woman gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
