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Dad delivers baby on side of I-77

A Fort Mill baby was welcomed into this world on the side of I-77 Monday morning.

CHARLOTTE, NC -- A Fort Mill baby was welcomed into this world on the side of I-77 Monday morning.

Becky Ackerman went into labor around 1 a.m. and on their way to the hospital -- in the car -- she started giving birth.

So her husband Charles pulled off the highway and delivered their son himself, crouched by the passenger door on an off-ramp.

“She told me she could feel the baby coming and I started to panic” Charles recalled later at the hospital. “I was scared and so nervous.”

The couple hadn’t even made it a mile from their house. Charles dialed 911, and a dispatcher named Thomas walked him through the birth.

“He was just trying to keep me calm and walk me through it,” Charles said. “I walked around the side of the truck and he told me to check if I could see the baby, which I could, so we started to tell her to start pushing. She pushed two times and he was out.”

In that moment, Charles and Becky said they were in shock. Panicked, they were desperate to make sure their baby was OK.

Thomas, the York County dispatcher, kept them calm until help arrived.

“He was just telling me to be calm, it's going to be all right, just grab the baby make sure the umbilical cords not wrapped around it's neck, make sure that you clear at the passageways the mouth and nose, make sure he's breathing, make sure he is crying.“

Five minutes later, an ambulance brought them the hospital. The baby is all happy and healthy thanks to dad…and Thomas.

Which, by the way, is what they named their new baby boy.

“I honestly don’t know what I would have done if not for talking with him,” Charles said.

He added they have been in touch with Thomas, the dispatcher to thank him for his help delivering Thomas, their baby.

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