At 6:25 a.m. on the morning of Monday, Aug. 20, Laura Foglia and Steve Boddam welcomed the arrival of their second child, Ashtyn.
But wait, there’s a twist. This baby wasn’t born in a hospital or at home, he came into the world at the Lake Cowichan detachment of the B.C. Ambulance Service.
“We were paged at 6 a.m.,” said Jamie Hockin, the lead attending paramedic on shift at the time. “They said someone was in the parking lot, so we went outside.”
Foglia’s water broke while she was still in her vehicle being assessed by Hockin.
“My partner [Rob Sutton] brought over the gurney and we got her [Foglia] into the ambulance, but we didn’t have enough time to transport her to the hospital. A couple of minutes later the baby was born.”
This was Hockin’s first experience with delivering a child, but he says he didn’t have much trouble staying calm.
“It’s a bit hard to remember,” he said. “But I wasn’t freaked out. There wasn’t much I could do, it wasn’t an emergency, it just sort of took care of itself.”
Despite his humble view of his actions that morning, Foglia and Boddam are very grateful.
“He was awesome,” said Foglia. “He was really calm and just did what he needed to do.”
“He was pretty darn amazing for his first go of it,” said Boddam. “He did really, really well.”
Baby Ashtyn was seven pounds 11 ounces, and 19.5 inches long. Foglia says he was a little smaller than her three-year-old Lyum when he was born.
“It all happened kind of fast,” said Foglia. The family had gotten in their car to go to the hospital, when she realized they would not make it; the baby was coming too fast.
“So we went to the ambulance, and Steve called 911. Ashtyn was born 10 minutes later.”
Boddam says that he was able to maintain calm until the moment Foglia decided she wasn’t going to be able to make it to the hospital.
“Then I panicked a bit,” he said.
Once they arrived at the ambulance station, “I was busy running back and forth from the car to the ambulance calming our three-year-old down. He was crying because mommy was hurt,” said Boddam. “I did get to see the baby born, which is what I wanted.”
The couple went to the station on Wednesday, Aug. 29 to express their appreciation to Hockin. They brought along with them some muffins and coffee.
“We spent a good hour together,” said Hockin. “And let the three-year-old check out the ambulance and stuff.”
“That made his day, or his month,” said Foglia, speaking about young Lyum.
The family is getting to know their new addition, and Foglia doesn’t expect to get much sleep over the next couple of years.
As for Ashtyn being born on the front doorstep of the ambulance station, “It was an experience I never thought I’d have,” said Foglia.
