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Mom didn't make it back to Kansas before her baby arrived, aided by a traveler's shoestring and a nurse's quick action.
By TAMARA LUSH
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 30, 2001
TAMPA -- Brenda Cary was 10 minutes away from boarding her flight home to Kansas on Sunday morning when she felt waves of abdominal cramps. Seven months pregnant, Cary stretched out on the carpet near Gate 37.
"My baby's coming, my baby's coming," Cary said to her father, who had driven her to Tampa International Airport.
Cary, 29, and her 2-year-old daughter had been in Brandon visiting her parents. Her doctor back in Wichita had given her his blessing to fly. Now, 1,500 miles from her doctor, her home and her husband, Cary had to rely on airport workers and other travelers to deliver her baby.
Tina Lantz, a nurse headed to Colorado, ran over and offered help. Cary's father called paramedics from his cell phone. Airport workers broadcast a calm yet urgent message over the intercom: "Is there a doctor in Terminal C?"
Lantz and Cary's father moved her to the entrance of a nearby bathroom. By that time, Cary had started to deliver a baby girl.
Lantz discovered that the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around the baby's neck. She quickly slipped the cord away from the infant's neck and, almost simultaneously, the baby was born.
"I had no time to think about it," Lantz said. "Her trunk was pink, which was very good, but she was not breathing fast."
Lantz, an adult trauma nurse who studied pediatrics in school, placed her mouth on the baby's nose and breathed life into her.
As Lantz held the baby in her arms, a 911 dispatcher on the phone with Cary's dad told him to tie off the umbilical cord. A crowd had gathered, and a woman on her way to Atlanta took the lace from her shoe and tied off the cord.
As Lantz continued to help with the breathing, the baby suddenly cried like a kitten and waved her arms.
Nearby Delta employees handed Lantz a few blankets, in which the baby was quickly swaddled.
Paramedics arrived. An obstetrician-gynecologist also on her way to Atlanta stopped to help and checked the baby's heartbeat. The doctor reassured Cary that the baby's heartbeat was strong.
The crowd clapped as Cary was wheeled out of the terminal. A man handed Cary's dad a cigar.
Cary and the baby were taken to St. Joseph's Women's Hospital in Tampa.
Cary held her baby in the ambulance, but as soon as they got to the hospital, the infant was nestled into an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit.
A day and a half later, and in front of television cameras and reporters, Cary got to hold the baby for the first time since the ambulance ride.
Her husband, 29-year-old Darren Cary, stood by, choking back tears as he watched his wife stroke the baby's cheek.
The baby, who has not yet been named, is 3 pounds, 7 ounces. She is about 16 inches long. She may have to stay in St. Joseph's for the next two months. An ICU nurse said the baby is doing well and breathing on her own, but probably wouldn't have lived if Lantz hadn't revived her.
"God was definitely watching out for us," Brenda Cary said. "I'm going to need more pages in her baby book. It's quite a baby story."
-- Tamara Lush can be reached at 813-226-3373 or lush@sptimes.com.