Bridgeport first responders reunite with baby they helped deliver at home
Jerrad Pullen planned to drive his wife to Yale New Haven Hospital, where she was supposed to give birth. But within minutes, Arielle Pullen knew that wasn't going to happen.
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Augustus Pullen is now 9 days old.
"He's super chill. Even when he's awake, he doesn't do a lot of crying. He's not really fussy or whiny," said dad Jerrad Pullen.
But Baby Gus, as he's called, provided plenty of drama when he came into the world.
On the night of Feb. 17, Arielle Pullen realized she was in labor and yelled to her husband.
"I'm like, 'Listen. We've got to go now.' He's like, 'Oh she's just, she's just going through the motions. She'll be OK,'" Arielle Pullen said as she sat beside her smiling husband.
Jerrad Pullen planned to drive his wife to Yale New Haven Hospital, where she was supposed to give birth. But within minutes, Arielle Pullen knew that wasn't going to happen.
"I yelled to him. I was like, 'You have to call 911 right now! It's happening. We've got to go!'" Arielle Pullen recalled.
Four Bridgeport firefighters quickly arrived.
"We were here within two minutes of the initial dispatch," Lt. Sean Canfield, of the Bridgeport Fire Department, told News 12. "When we got here, the mother was hunched over her bed, and [American Medical Response] pulled up pretty much right behind us. We made the decision to try to get her down into the back of the ambulance right away."
Arielle Pullen was on the second floor. Taking the stairs to the first floor proved difficult.
"Once I got down to maybe the second-to-last step, I'm like 'This is really happening. He's really coming out,'" Arielle Pullen explained. "The fire department and AMR were wonderful. They were able to somehow get me to lay down because I was just protesting everything. Everything was a 'no.'"
"We were here for maybe two minutes, and it was baby time. We had to lay mom down, and Baby Gus just came right out," said Brendan Canty, one of two EMTS with AMR who responded. "She's a rockstar. She knocked it out of the park."
The Pullens didn't expect things to happen so fast, especially since they've been through this before. Gus is their third son. Arielle even had a doctor's appointment that morning. She was told everything was fine, and they'd see her again in about a week. But the youngest Pullen had other plans.
"He had places to be, people to meet," Arielle Pullen said with a laugh.
Mom and newborn Gus went to Bridgeport Hospital, where doctors gave them both the thumbs up.
"They did a really, really awesome job," Jerrad Pullen said of the six first responders who helped bring Gus into the world.
On Thursday, those first responders returned to the Pullens' home to properly meet the family's new addition. For Canty, it was his third delivery in the field, but the first where he got the chance to reunite with the baby.
"That was definitely cool," Canty told News 12.
The crew also came with a reminder of the special delivery—an AMR onesie. Not that the Pullens will ever forget it.
"It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Many parents don't get the opportunity to experience something like that in a hospital, let alone in your front doorstep," Jerrad Pullen said, smiling. "Good story to tell him when he grows up."
