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Jimmy Joe Perry was driving his girlfriend, Becky Buccino, to Mary Washington Hospital.
Layla Michelle was born Saturday in the back of her dad's vehicle. She is in the neonatal intensive care unit. |
Jimmy Joe Perry, his foot on the gas, was moving swiftly up State Route 2 en route to Mary Washington Hospital.
His daughter, Layla Michelle, just happened to be moving a bit faster.
Perry, a painter and carpenter by trade, became a deliveryman on Saturday after pulling his 2000 Ford Expedition into the parking lot of the Tidewater Market and helping his daughter into the world.
"I had tears of joy," the 29-year-old Bowling Green man said yesterday. "It was so emotional."
The adventure began early Saturday morning when Perry's girlfriend, 25-year-old Becky Buccino, woke up with cramps.
The baby wasn't due until July 14, but the pregnancy had been a difficult one. She'd lost the baby's fraternal twin in December and had been on bed rest for weeks.
When she started having contractions around 6 a.m., she called her doctor and her mother, a nurse. Both told her to head for the hospital.
On the drive, Buccino's contractions drew closer and closer.
"We get halfway down Route 2, and they're getting worse and worse," she said.
"And I'm rushing faster and faster," said Perry.
"Finally, I told him, 'You need to pull over so I can get myself together,'" she said.
Perry pulled into the parking lot of the Tidewater Market on Tidewater Trail in Spotsylvania County about 6:30 a.m. and called 911.
A dispatcher--colleagues at the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Office confirmed yesterday that it was communications operator Angela Henderson--told him to move Buccino to the back seat of the Expedition and let her push.
Push she did. And her water broke all over Perry's cell phone.
"God mysteriously let the phone keep working," he said.
When she pushed again, he spotted the baby's head. And on the third effort, Layla Michelle flopped out onto a Care Bears blanket he'd thrown across the back seat.
"Layla coughed one time and started crying," said Perry. "As soon as I heard that, I thought, 'She's going to be OK.'"
He laid the baby across Buccino's chest and used a brown shoelace from his Skechers sneakers to pinch off the umbilical cord. That's when the paramedics arrived.
That's also about the time Buccino's mother, Lana Coghill, raced by, also en route to the hospital. She spotted the activity in the parking lot, and as she spun a U-turn, Perry gave her a thumbs-up.
"I couldn't get over it. I still can't," said Coghill. "If that doesn't reaffirm your faith, I don't know what does."
Buccino, who has a 4-year-old son who was about six weeks premature, said she expects to be released from Mary Washington Hospital today.
Layla Michelle, who was 3 pounds, 9 ounces at birth, is spending some time in the neonatal intensive care unit, putting on a little weight and strengthening her lungs.
The couple said they've been amazed by all the care they've received, from dispatcher Henderson and the paramedics at the scene to the doctors and nurses at Mary Washington Hospital.
In addition, Sprint offered to replace the cell phone, which quit working once the crisis was over.
And Ground Keepers, a local landscaping business, gave the couple a rose bush to plant and watch grow with the baby. Perry had asked the company to sell him a single rose in a desperate quest for flowers after Buccino was secure in the hospital.
Perry, the father of two older boys, said he's still just blown away by the experience.
"It was unforgettable," he said. "The best feeling in the world."
Edie Gross: 540/374-5428
