Atlanta firefighters deliver baby girl on board plane at Hartsfield-Jackson
ATLANTA - One jet came into Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport with one more passenger than it left with.
Atlanta Fire Rescue firefighters met the plane at the gate, hopped on board, and delivered baby girl Analia.
"They checked me, they’re like, are you OK?’" mom Liliana Acevedo Castaneda recounted. "I said, ‘no I have really bad contractions.’"
She said about an hour in on her flight from Mexico when the contractions began. A nurse on board came to her aid, took her in the back of the plane, and gave her oxygen.
Three and a half hours away from Atlanta.
"He was like don’t try to push because if you push more, the baby will come out," Liliana said. "So I held the contractions for like three hours and 30 minutes on the way [to Hartsfield-Jackson.]"
The pilots told air traffic control to have EMS meet them on the ground.
"When we got to the gate, we noticed that the airplane was coming in exceedingly fast," said firefighter Wanetta Nash, who helped deliver the baby. "Faster than normal."
When firefighters got on board, they realized they had to deliver the baby right then and there.
Moments later, loud cries came from the back of the plane and the cabin erupted in applause.
"One of the flight attendants got on the microphone and she was able to say, ‘hey we have a baby girl!’" said Nash. "Everybody started clapping. I mean, the pilots were high-fiving. It was a very special occasion."
Baby Analia weighed in at five pounds and four ounces. She wasn’t due until Dec. 23, but she decided to make an early arrival on Nov. 14.
Liliana and her husband Edgar are from Raleigh, North Carolina. Their stop in Atlanta was supposed to be a quick layover, but Analia had other ideas.
On Tuesday afternoon, the couple reunited with the firefighters that came to their aid and thanked them.
Baby Analia was still in the hospital Tuesday evening, but the new parents said they could bring her back home to North Carolina as early as Wednesday.
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