A dad was forced to use a homemade face mask to bind his baby's umbilical cord after his wife give birth in the parking lot of a locked hospital
- A Louisville woman and her husband arrived at the hospital as she was going into labor and found the doors locked.
- When they struggled to get the doors open, and couldn't reach anyone inside, her water broke.
- The woman, Sarah Patrick, gave birth in the parking lot outside the hospital, the Louisville Courier Journal reported.
- She and her husband, David, used a homemade face mask to tie the umbilical cord.
Sarah Patrick, of Louisville, Kentucky, went into labor in the early hours of May 9. When she and her husband, David, arrived at the hospital at 3 a.m. they couldn't get inside, the Louisville Courier Journal first reported.
After trying two sets of doors at Baptist Health Louisville, Patrick's water broke while standing on a service road near the parking lot of the hospital, her husband told Courier Journal reporter Billy Kobin.
"We're in the middle of the street and she can't move," the man told the Courier Journal. "She nearly collapses in front of the labor and delivery sign."
David helped his wife onto the ground and called 911. The dispatcher started walking the couple through what they should do.
Shortly after making the call, their son's head started crowning. Within 10 or 15 seconds, David told the Courier Journal, the rest of the baby's body "flips out like a fish."
The dispatcher told David to bind the umbilical cord, so he started rummaging through their belongings for something that could work. He landed on a homemade coronavirus mask that his grandmother knitted, and rolled it tight.
An ambulance and several nurses arrived to get Sarah onto a stretcher, and the healthy mom and baby recovered inside the hospital. Staff apologized for the issue with the doors, and officials issued a statement to WLKY saying patients in labor should always be able to enter the ER or delivery doors of the hospital.
The parents told the Courier Journal they don't hold any hard feelings.
After an unusual Mother's Day weekend, the couple is home with their three children.
"Everybody's happy. Everybody's healthy," David told the local paper. "We thought we had planned for everything, but obviously there were a couple little holes in the plan."