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When new duty calls, deputy delivers

Almost quicker than you can say "midwife," she is handed the role by a frantic couple alongside State Road 60.

By ANDREW MEACHAM
Published August 17, 2006

BRANDON - Before dawn Wednesday along State Road 60, Hillsborough County's population increased by one.

Sheriff's Sgt. Mozell Porter, a 25-year veteran on her way to work, was waiting for a traffic light at Hilltop Drive in Brandon when a man knocked on her passenger window.

"He spoke very limited English," Porter recalled. Filogonio Garcia, 28, gestured as if he were playing a frantic game of charades.

Porter told him to pull off the road. Garcia parked next to a Checkers restaurant.

When Porter walked to his car, she saw what was making Garcia so excited.

Fatherhood.

Christina Morales lay on the seat, giving birth.

A deputy's training in obstetrics can usually be summed up in two words, Porter said.

"Call 911."

She had helped women in labor, but Porter had never handled a birth while on duty.

Moments after she got in the car, a head emerged.

"There was no time for gloves," Porter said.

She radioed for paramedics. She handed her flashlight to Garcia and tried to reassure Morales, who looked "a little panic-stricken."

"I just made sure that the baby came out and wasn't going to get tangled up."

The baby slid into the deputy's hands. It was a girl.

The couple, of Mulberry in Polk County, told Porter that they had tried to find Brandon Regional Hospital but got lost.

Porter rested the infant on the mother's abdomen, umbilical cord intact. Emergency Services technicians took Morales and her baby to Brandon Regional.

Hospital spokeswoman Debra McKell declined comment at the family's request.

Porter was awed by the experience.

"I felt like it was a blessing this morning that God put me in a particular place and a time to help these people who were obviously terrified," she said.

[Last modified August 17, 2006, 06:23:22]