When parents Taylor Tripp and Connor Garrison dropped off their other child, 19-month-old Jaxton, to Connor’s mom’s home in Tuscumbia around midnight on Feb. 9, the young couple was excited to head to the hospital for the birth of their second child.
Little did they realize they would drive just one mile down the road before saying hello to their new baby girl.
Connor, from Versailles, was driving his pickup in the ice storm when it became obvious that Taylor, who is from Mansfield, wasn’t going to make it to the hospital in time for a delivery. Connor said he pulled over on Buster Road and about the time he got Taylor settled into the back seat, he could see the baby’s head. He called 9-1-1 and it was noted that an ambulance would take 30 minutes to get to their location.
“They pretty much talked me through it,” Garrison said of 9-1-1 dispatch for delivering his own child. “They told me to make her not hold anything back. She did not want to have the baby there…I went into full dad mode. I was not in shock until after (it was over.)”
Connor said from the time he stopped his truck to the delivery of his baby was just five minutes.
“It was a surprise,” he noted. “I’m still in shock, I didn’t really grasp what had just happened at that point in time.”
After delivering a 6 lb., 6 oz. and 19 inches long baby girl named LynnLeigh Paige Garrison, Connor placed the child into a baby blanket made by Taylor’s grandmother that was in the couple’s baby bag.
“I wrapped her in it and set her on Taylor’s chest,” he added. Connor went on to say, “I never thought I’d be able to deliver a baby; I’m the clumsiest person I know.”
The ambulance arrived and took both mom and the baby to St. Mary’s Hospital in Jefferson City, where both were doing fine after the delivery. Taylor’s Mansfield family ties include her father David and brother Doug. Her mother Pam currently resides in Springfield.
