Galway garda helps to deliver baby on the roadside in hailstorm

Peter and Kelly Gannon and their baby daughter, Cara. Garda Eric Carney of Clifden Garda Station came to their aid when Kelly went into labour in Letterfrack last week while on the way to Mayo General Hospital. Picture: Hany Marzouk 

When Garda Eric Carney was on his way from Co Mayo to Clifden, Co Galway for a night shift last week, he never expected his work would begin before he arrived.

He was passing an unmanned garda station at Letterfrack, Co Galway, when he spotted a parked car with hazard lights on.

“I stopped to check if everything was okay, and there was a poor man on the phone to ambulance control," Garda Carney said.

“His wife was in labour in the front passenger seat, so I made a few phonecalls myself to try and get an ambulance or a doctor, but was told the ambulance coming from Swinford, Co Mayo, would be 50 minutes."

Reacting quickly, garda Carney told the man, Peter Gannon, to stay with his wife Kelly and grabbed towels from his car. Peter was on the phone to a paramedic but couldn't hear anything in the wind, so Garda Carney stepped in and the two of them helped deliver the baby.

He took a lace from Mr Gannon’s shoe to tie around the baby’s umbilical cord, and Kelly’s sister-in-law Noeleen McConway arrived with fresh towels.

“I wrapped the baby in the towels, and it was very alert, and wasn’t crying at all,” Garda Carney recalled.

Kelly Gannon remembers it was “all very quick”.

Both she and Peter are parents of a 22-month-old, and they live near Clifden where her husband works with State community organisation Pobal.

Their second child was overdue by three days when Kelly went to Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar last Thursday afternoon. 

“There was no sign of labour and I was told to go home and they would book me in to be induced the following week. I started to feel a bit funny around 3pm that same day,” she said.

The couple organised care for their son, Cathal, and Peter said that they were a little delayed leaving the house to ensure that he settled.

“We were on the road at 6.15pm and at 6.20pm, my waters broke, and that’s when we called 999,” Ms Gannon said.

“We pulled in at Letterfrack Garda Station carpark, but it is not manned and there was no one about.

“We were just so lucky that Garda Carney was coming from Islandeady and saw the car lights. I think he got a bit of a fright when he was what was going on."

Baby Cara was born 20 minutes later.

The couple with their baby, along with Garda Carney and Ms McConway, waited another 40 minutes for the ambulance, all the time checking that Cara was breathing.

“There was a hail shower in the middle of it all, and it was very strange, but everything was fine,” Ms Gannon said.

When the ambulance arrived, mother and baby were transferred by the paramedics to Castlebar where Cara's weight was confirmed at 7lbs 9oz.

“We had picked Cara’s name a couple of weeks before, but I never thought she’d be born in a car,” her mother laughed, speaking after their discharge from hospital yesterday.