FAIRFIELD – A Jackman woman delivered her baby boy in the back seat of her car while her husband coached her Friday morning along Route 104.

The couple, Jill and Chris Demanski, were driving to Inland Hospital in Waterville but pulled over into a stranger’s driveway, where the baby, Michael, was delivered at 7:35 a.m.

The family moved to Jackman while she was pregnant, but because their daughters Riley, 5, and Taylor, 3, were both delivered at Inland Hospital, the couple decided to deliver their third child at the hospital – even though it was more than two hours away from home, Jill Demanski said.

“We kind of had a running joke that our baby was going to be born on the side of the road. Unfortunately, that’s what really happened,” she said.

She said her parents were driving her two daughters down to visit them. She called them to tell them about Michael, but “I don’t think they really believed us over the phone.”

Jill Demanski said they left their home in Jackman around 6 a.m. Friday and they pulled over in a driveway along Route 104 around 7:30 a.m. in Fairfield.

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Their car is equipped with OnStar auto safety and navigation service. Chris Demanski, who is an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol, called the company, which had an operator help talk the couple through the birthing process.

An ambulance was called, but it was a fast delivery and Michael was born before rescue crews arrived.

Jill Demanski said she was impressed by the calm of her husband and the Delta Ambulance paramedics who took her to Inland.

Demanski said they are not sure whose driveway she gave birth in, and she didn’t see the residents come outside.

“I’m not sure if they were just asleep the whole time or what,” she said.

 

Kaitlin Schroeder can be contacted at 861-9252 or at:

kschroeder@mainetoday.com

 


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