Early arrival: Parents deliver baby in passenger seat
SACRAMENTO — Maverick Navest is days old, but his dad Lucas Navest is already planning on what he will tell his son about the day he was born.
"I'm going to just point over there, I'm like, 'hey, you were born right there on that corner,' " said Navest.
Lucas and Deanna Navest were on their way to the hospital Tuesday, when their son decided it was time to come into the world. Maverick was born in the passenger seat of his parents' car on the side of the road. The Elk Grove, Calif., family is thanking a 911 operator, paramedics and their iPhone charger for the safe and healthy delivery of their son.
On Tuesday night, Navest was racing through Elk Grove while his wife was having contractions.
"I hate to say it, but I was flying through stop signs and red lights," Navest admitted.
They didn't get far before they had to pull over.
"She starts screaming at the top of her lungs, the loudest I ever heard her scream, and she undid her seat belt and stood up," Navest said.
He looked over and saw his wife was holding the baby's head in her hands. He got out of the car and ran to the passenger side.
"Opened up the door. By that time my wife was holding the baby, took it all the way out, took the baby all the way out already, was holding it in her arms," Navest explained.
However, the baby wasn't crying.
"She was really scared that the baby wasn't alive 'cause it wasn't making any noise," he said. "So, I turned the baby downward to get all the fluid out of his mouth, and that's where the military training really kicked in right there."
As a former military police officer, Navest had some medical training.
"You train to patch bullet holes and stuff like that, but when it's your own wife and own kid, it's a different story."
Soon the baby boy was crying and the couple called 911. Navest credits the dispatcher for walking him through the next steps.
"Told me I had to tie off the umbilical chord tightly with a shoelace or a string of some type," he explained. "Well, I was wearing sandals, and the first thing my eyes looked at was an iPhone charger chord. So I just used that and tied a knot on the umbilical chord, so thanks to Apple for that one."
Of course, Navest said the real credit goes to his wife, whose impromptu natural child birth isn't the first time she's proven her toughness.
"She went through hell on earth with me in Iraq for 13 months, you know raising a kid by herself, so she's a tough woman."
And when little Maverick is old enough to hear the story, he'll know the most important thing about his parents.
"Me and her, we're a good team," Navest said. "We worked together on it."
The proud father said Maverick weighed in at 6 pounds and 4 ounces, and both mom and baby are healthy.