Atlanta nurse successfully delivers baby in parking lot
ATLANTA - Evelyn Davis is a public health nurse at the Adamsville Regional Health Center in southwest Atlanta, but she started her career in labor and delivery.
When a woman ran into the Fulton County health office on February 9 screaming her granddaughter was in labor, Nurse Evelyn ran to the parking lot and jumped into action.
"I checked her and the baby was right there and I knew it was matter of one or two or three pushes and everything would happen," said Davis, who's been a nurse more than twenty years.
The southwest Atlanta facility wasn't built for labor and deliveries and the parking was nothing like a delivery room Wednesday afternoon.
"Choatic. There were people screaming, 'She's going to have the baby! Help her! Oh, Lord! What we gonna do? This is not a hospital. She should not be here!' So, I just asked everyone to calm down and then got the mother to calm down. She was screaming trying to prevent the baby from coming and I told her not to do that because you're gonna get a very strong contraction and that baby's gonna fly out," Davis said Thursday.
Nurse Evelyn talked mom through a couple of pushes until the head emerged. One more push and the baby girl arrived. Unfortunately, she was gray and wasn't breathing.
"We had her wrapped up and I started rubbing her chest and I was like, 'Come on baby, breathe, breathe, breathe, come on. Take a breath, baby. I just rubbed on the baby's chest and she let out a scream. I was so happy, said Davis, who delivered hundreds of babies on Navaho and Hopi Reservations in Arizona early on in her career.
"I'm just glad we were all here to help. I don't feel like a hero. I became a nurse to help people and I'm just glad I was here to help. Ten minutes later and this place would have been closed and no one would've been here to help." said Davis, who works in the HIV/AIDS division of the Adamsville Clinic.
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