RICK BOWMER/AP
‘They’re fighters. They’re strong. They’re going to be a couple of amazing boys,’ Lynette Hales said.
The twin babies weren’t going to wait for the hospital to arrive – and their determined mother wasn’t going to wait for paramedics to come and help them survive.
Heading to the hospital in rural western Utah, Lynette Hales and her friend Jim Gerber realized the babies – two months premature – were going to arrive well before their destination. Gerber pulled over and, receiving instruction during a 20 minute 911 call with dispatchers, helped deliver the first of the twins, little Jeffrey Junior (J.J.), who was still “in the sack.”
INTERMOUNTAIN MEDICAL CENTER /AP
Anthony James (A.J.) ‘gave out a big squawk’ when he was delivered feet first, and he ‘was breathing much easier’ than his brother, a Utah State Trooper said.
The tiny baby, only three pounds at birth, wasn’t breathing. But Hales and Gerber wouldn’t let J.J. die before his first breath.
“They’re such miracles,” Hales told reporters at a news conference Monday. “And they’re fighters. They’re strong. They’re going to be a couple of amazing boys.”
INTERMOUNTAIN MEDICAL CENTER /AP
Jeffrey Junior (J.J.) was still ‘in the sack’ when he was born. J.J. was struggling to breathe, but his mom wasn’t about to let him die.
As J.J. worked to live, police arrived on scene. Utah State Trooper Nathan Powell, arriving after the emergency call from more than 30 miles away, pulled out a suction tool to clear the still-struggling newborn’s airway.
The boy began to regain color.
RICK BOWMER/AP
Lynette Hales shakes hands with Utah Trooper Cameron Fawson, one of the troopers who helped her and friend Jim Gerber, center, on the side of the road.
“Talking to him, it was like he was connected there,” the emotional mother told The Deseret News on Monday. “He would look up at us, and he would look up at me, and I was like, ‘I’m not going to let you go. You’re going to be here, buddy.'”
There was still a second baby to arrive, and not without his own complication. Little Anthony James (A.J.) was delivered feet first but “gave out a big squawk” and “was breathing much easier” than J.J., Powell said.
RICK BOWMER/AP
Jim Gerber and Lynette Hales were driving to the hospital when she realized she just wasn’t going to make it.
By then, other troopers were on scene to help.
“We used the little bulb syringe, a little pat on the bum (and) we got the first cry,” said trooper Cameron Fawson. “Mom was quite the sport. I think she was keeping me calm. … She made a comment like, ‘The baby can hear you,’ so I told him to come on out.”
A medical helicopter arrived to fly the newborns and their mother to the hospital. The babies will likely spend weeks in intensive care as they gain weight and strength. But the twins are expected to survive – and their hero mother can’t wait to tell them all about their arrival.
“It was hard, it was scary,” Hales said. “It was a moment like no other.”
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