×
×
homepage logo
SUBSCRIBE

Baby born on shoulder of University Avenue

By Heidi Toth - Daily Herald - | Jan 15, 2010
1 / 3
Photo courtesy UVRMC
2 / 3
Summerlyn and Kale Brady talk to the media after Summerlyn delivered their fourth child on the side of the interstate with help from Provo officer Devon Jensen on Wednesday, January 13, 2010. Photo taken Thursday, January 14, 2010 at UVRMC in Provo. ASHLEY FRANSCELL/Daily Herald
3 / 3
Provo officer Devon Jensen, Summerlyn and Kale Brady laugh about nicknames of the Brady's brand new son, Jayden, who was born on the side of the interstate with help from Provo officer Devon Jensen on Wednesday, January 13, 2010. Photo taken Thursday, January 14, 2010 at UVRMC in Provo. ASHLEY FRANSCELL/Daily Herald

The paramedics took just five minutes to respond to a woman in labor on University Avenue on Wednesday night.

Jayden Karl Brady needed only three minutes to arrive.

The 6-pound, 11-ounce, 20-inch baby was born right after his mother exited I-15, flagged down a police officer and got to the side of the road. He entered the world in the passenger seat of a van, illuminated by dome lights, with cars whizzing by and an officer ready to catch.

Fortunately, besides the whole being-born-in-a-car-on-the-side-of-the-road thing, he came with few complications.

“Just breathe. Just breathe,” relieved mother Summerlyn Brady said she repeated to herself over and over in the seemingly endless time between mile marker 256 in Spanish Fork, when she realized her fifth child was coming now, and mile marker 263, when her friend pulled over and Provo Police Officer Devon Jensen delivered Jayden.

Summerlyn completely destroyed her labor time average with Jayden; her other four labor experiences ranged from 15 hours to two days. She’d already come up to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center last week with a labor false alarm, so when she and her friend left their hometown of Wales in Nephi Canyon for the hospital, not making it in time was not a consideration.

Then she realized she was in trouble. Her friend was driving in the fast lane but reflexively slowed when she saw a police car on the freeway.

“And then the contraction hit,” Summerlyn said. “He was going a good speed, and I said, ‘You’ve gotta catch this cop.'”

Catch him they did, and within 10 minutes became good friends. Jensen called the paramedics, but then realized they wouldn’t arrive in time. His role was to keep Summerlyn calm, which he said she made easy, and then help Jayden out. The baby came out head first and right into Jensen’s waiting hands, which didn’t start shaking until after it was over.

By Thursday, Summerlyn and her husband, Kale, were thinking of nicknames, planning the baby book and reliving Kale’s phone call to Summerlyn’s mother. It went about as one would expect. She was hysterical.

“She wouldn’t believe it either,” Kale said, adding she kept on him to tell her what was actually going on and to stop joking about such a serious matter. “She kept saying, ‘This is not a funny joke, Kale.’ “

Perhaps not, but it’s a fun story. One woman pulled over and asked Jensen if they needed help, and Summerlyn has an image of a man driving by in a red car just staring with wide eyes and mouth agape.

Jensen said once Jayden had arrived and the paramedics cut the umbilical cord and took the Bradys to the hospital, he started wondering what he’d just done. So he did what anyone might do; he called his wife and told her she wasn’t going to believe what he just did. He was right.

For a father of an 8-month-old, though, the experience was sweet.

“Just holding that little one,” he said was his favorite part.

Jayden spent Thursday in the neonatal intensive care unit because he inhaled some meconium, or newborn feces, but was expected to return home Friday.

Newsletter

Join thousands already receiving our daily newsletter.

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)