This was Honolulu police officer Stephen Keogh’s second birth in eight months.
No, the single 39-year-old motorcycle cop doesn’t have any children of his own, but on Thursday he helped deliver a baby girl on the H-1 freeway. His first delivery was Aug. 31.
"This one was way more involved," Keogh said Thursday. "The woman is in labor, and she was just getting calm when the water broke. Then things happened quickly."
Keogh and two other officers, Kirk Brown and Grant Robello, had parked their motorcycles on the median and were attending to a minor accident during rush-hour traffic on the eastbound lanes of the H-1 near the viaduct close to Middle Street.
That’s when the baby’s dad pulled up right behind them in his pickup truck.
He "hopped out and just said, ‘Hey, I don’t think we’re going to make it to the hospital. Can you help us out?’" Keogh recalled.
This time Keogh was better prepared, with a couple of clean towels and a pair of latex gloves in his motorcycle storage compartment.
Brown and Robello worked with Keogh, one calling Emergency Medical Services personnel to assist them and the other keeping in contact with police communications.
The Waipahu woman gave birth within five minutes to a healthy baby girl at about 8 a.m., and Keogh "caught" the newborn.
"That little girl came out on the front seat of the pickup truck," he said. "She had her own agenda."
As for the mother, "I felt she was in control, and she did a fantastic job," Keogh said.
EMS personnel arrived and took over, cutting the umbilical cord and taking mother and child by ambulance to Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children.
Keogh’s first baby girl was born 8:50 a.m. Aug. 31, seconds before he came upon the woman’s brother-in-law, who flagged him down on the H-1 freeway near the Likelike Highway onramp.
The mother in that birth, Jenna Mae Edrada, later praised Keogh’s ability to keep her calm while they waited 10 minutes for the ambulance. From his motorcycle he retrieved a small clean cloth, which Edrada used to wrap the infant and keep her warm.
Robello, who was also at the first birth, used his flashlight wrist strap to tie off the umbilical cord.
Thursday’s newborn "gave us a pretty good cry when she first came out, and that was pretty reassuring for me," Keogh said. "I just wish the best for that little girl and her parents."
