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A 911 dispatcher in N.H. helped deliver a baby girl over the phone. He just met her in person.
“You guys have had a lasting impact on me. I’m not going to forget it,” the dispatcher Jonathan DuBois told the family.
TUFTONBORO, N.H. –—On a cold evening in January, Jonathan DuBois decided to pick up an extra overnight shift answering 911 calls — and he received a call unlike any he’d handled before in his six years on the job.
That same day, Keelin Shea, 32, was at her job as a physical therapist, but by the evening she and her husband Nick McNally, 35, realized their baby girl was coming two weeks early. Shea’s water had broken at home, and there was no time for an hourlong drive to the hospital in North Conway where they had planned to give birth.
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Shea’s doctors told McNally to call 911. And it was DuBois who answered.
For about 10 intense and exciting minutes, DuBois guided the parents as they delivered the baby in the bathroom of their Tuftonboro home.
A month later, at the Tuftonboro Fire Rescue Department on Tuesday, DuBois, 34, finally got to meet the family and the baby girl, Annalise McNally, whom he helped guide into the world.
“I’ve never met anyone else that I’ve been on a call with,” he said, at moments growing visibly emotional.
“You keeping your calm just helped me keep my calm in the situation,” McNally said to DuBois.
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“I might have seemed calm, but I was not,” DuBois said. “I was very excited for you guys… You guys have had a lasting impact on me. I’m not going to forget it.”
When McNally called, Dubois said, he followed a set of cards on his computer with written instructions about how to handle a child birth. He tried to talk slowly and give clear instructions, explaining why each step was important.
DuBois also has a five year old daughter and is expecting his second child with his wife in May. “I try to treat all the calls I take as if it’s my brother, my sister, my family on the other end,” he said.
Once they told him the contractions were only a minute apart, he realized the baby would probably arrive quickly. He said he felt a mix of excitement and nerves.
“At that point, it was just trying to get through the instructions to help them in case the child was born before responders got there,” he said.
For his part, McNally, a carpenter, said he was nervous and could feel an adrenaline-like sensation. “Everything was just so surreal at that point,” he said.
They’d had no plans of doing a home birth, and McNally said he also felt a little frustrated – he had tried to get Shea to go to the hospital earlier in the evening, but she thought the cramping she felt when she came home from work was prodromal labor, or a false labor, which occurs before true labor sets in and can last for days or even weeks.
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“I was like, ‘Well, what if they stop again?’ I don’t want to drive the whole hour to the hospital if I’m going to get sent home,” she said.
Instead, she decided to take a bath. But after she got out, she realized the contractions were just a minute apart. By that point, it was too late for the hourlong drive to the hospital.
Shea said she was just focused on breathing through the contractions, which had grown so strong she couldn’t think about anything else. “It kind of saved me from being able to freak out,” she said.
It was Shea’s second pregnancy, after delivering her first daughter Audrey Rose McNally, 2, in a hospital.
“I actually thought it was less traumatic at home and to be in my own place,” she said. “I could feel exactly what I needed to do without anyone intervening.” McNally said he was just glad they didn’t end up having to deliver the baby on the side of a road.
DuBois notified a local dispatcher at the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department, Abigail Smith, 19, who sent first responders to the family’s home. They arrived after Annalise had been born, and transported her and Shea to the hospital, with McNally following behind them in a car.
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Both parents said they’re grateful for the help they received from 911 and the other first responders.
McNally said he reached out to try to get in contact with DuBois to thank him for being “a rock” in a stressful situation.
“I’d love to meet him and shake his hand and just let him know how grateful we were for that,” McNally said. “And, you know, it all came together.”
While the call only lasted around 10 minutes, Dubois said it has had a lasting impact on him.
“For the most part, we don’t really know what happens after we get off the phone with them because we have to get ready for our next call,” he said. “So to have the full circle, it’s really special and nice.”
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