Two Minnesota police officers are being hailed for resuscitating a baby and delivering her twin after responding to an emergency call earlier this week.
Nichole Mickelson was home with her 2-year-old son when she went into labor after taking a shower early Tuesday morning. She called her mother and her husband, who had left early for work, to inform them about her situation, and then she called 911.
“By the time I got out of the shower. I was already having full-blown contractions,” Mickelson, who lives in the city of Wyoming, told ABC News.
Two officers from the Wyoming Police Department were dispatched to Mickelson’s home. When they arrived there, they found her door locked, with no other way to enter the home.
“With a swift kick to the door, the officer forced entry into the house and found the mother had just given birth to a baby girl,” the police department said in a statement. “The newborn was in the mother’s arms and not breathing.”
Mickelson saw that the first baby wasn’t breathing, but she couldn’t try to rescue her because she was still having contractions and was about to give birth to the second baby.
“But that’s when the police arrived,” Mickelson said.
Upon their arrival, one of the officers immediately went to perform CPR on the baby that wasn’t breathing.
“The officer sprang into action and began CPR on the newborn baby girl, Anna, clearing the airway, giving mouth-to-mouth and compression until she came to life with that familiar newborn cry,” police said.
After helping baby Anna breathe, the officers helped deliver Mickelson’s second daughter. Dealing with both resuscitating a baby who can’t breathe and delivering another baby at the same time is extremely rare, the police said.
“As a chief, you want to make sure you give your staff the necessary training to do their job, and you hope they recall that training when the need arises,” Wyoming Police Chief Paul Hoppe said in the statement. “On this day, these two officers performed flawlessly, professionally, without hesitation, with care and compassion to the family.”
Mickelson said that as a nurse she could tell that the officers had been trained to respond to such situations, but that they probably never had to do it in real life.
“They’ve been trained in it, but they’ve never done it before, so I knew they were probably quite nervous,” Mickelson said. “But, yeah, they did great. It turned out to be happy ending.”
“When anybody’s put in that kind of situation I think adrenaline takes over and you don’t really have time to be nervous or panicky,” she said.
In the police statement, Hoppe welcomed the two new members to the Wyoming community and thanked the officers for their response.
“I am pleased to introduce Anna and Ashley Mickelson to our community,” he said, “and honor Officers Paavola and Boecker, who’s actions saved a life and kept this family’s experience a joyful moment.”
