Whitestown fireman makes emergency baby delivery at home

WHITESTOWN, Ind. (WISH) — The call to deliver a baby in the field is one for which every firefighter is prepared, but might never expect.

It happened three weeks ago to a Whitestown fireman, when the mom didn’t have time to make it to the hospital.

The baby wasn’t due for another nine days.

And while the mom and dad were ready for a hospital delivery, baby Lucas decided to rush his entrance into the world.

Rebecca Kusmierczyk didn’t expect the sound of a siren to usher in the birth of her third child, but baby Lucas was in a hurry.

“From beginning to end, from the first contraction to when he was in my arms, was about an hour and 15 minutes,” she said.

She and her husband tried sticking with their plan to get to the hospital on their own.

“By the time we got down to get in the garage and get out, I knew we weren’t going to make it,” Kusmierczyk said.

A 911 call later, her delivery team of Whitestown firefighters, including Billy Legere, arrived.

“From our dispatch information we had the thought that we may be delivering a baby at home,” he said.

He had seen births through clinicals, training, and his own children being born, but had never delivered a baby in the field.

“Everyone in the room was nervous,” he said, “It was a moment to step back and think let’s hope everything goes alright here, and in the end it was a textbook delivery,” he said.

And it turns out they got there just in time because Lucas was ready for his debut.

“We were on the scene a total of 11 minutes,” Legere said.

“It was a lot of excitement and he obviously made his presence known very quickly,” Kusmierczyk said.

When Lucas hears this story years from now, Rebecca said she’ll tell him just how blessed they all felt when she finally held him in her arms.

“When it was all said and done, the thing we kept coming back to was just how lucky and grateful we were that if things were going to happen that way that they happened the way they did and that everything worked out ok,” she said.

This is the first time a Whitestown firefighter has delivered a baby in the field in the history of the department.

Billy has only been on the department for two months.

They are all proud and grateful it went so well.