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Grand Haven woman gives birth, husband delivers son in truck on side of I-96

Posted at 10:46 PM, Jul 28, 2019
and last updated 2019-07-28 22:46:25-04

GRAND HAVEN, Mich -- A woman gave birth to her son in the front seat of a truck, on the side of a busy highway.

The father is the one who helped deliver the baby boy.

When Chrissy and Jake VanDyke left a doctors appointment early on Tuesday, they were expecting their son to be born a couple days after. Turns out that came much sooner.

"She ended up going into contractions about 6:15 p.m. [Tuesday]. We started speeding down Lincoln Street, it was right around the time everyone is getting out of work, obviously that was the worst time possible for everything," Jake VanDyke, explained.

"I was kind of hesitant to call 911 at that time until she had said that she felt like she had to push. So I just went ahead and called and they told me to pull over, so we ended up pulling over on westbound I-96," Jake, added.

They had no choice but to pull over on the highway near Nunica.

"My adrenaline was just pumping I just surpassed all my other emotions and just tried to focus on what was going on at the time. The dispatcher was guiding me through it trying to time out her contractions and pretty just make sure they were both okay," Jake, said.

"He ended up having part of his umbilical cord around his head, so I had to pull it over top of him," Jake, added.

The whole process happened in minutes, Chrissy gave birth to Orion in the front of seat of Jake’s truck.

First responders came by after to bring them to the hospital.

"I think I was in just shock that I couldn’t really process what was going on, I just managed to do it," Chrissy, said.

Baby Orion is a healthy six pounds, seven ounces.

The parents say without the help of that Ottawa County Dispatcher they are not sure how they could have got through it.