Kayla Alvarez delivered her second daughter Mariah in an unlikely place thanks to the help of an unlikely friend.
The 25-year-old Mass. mom was 38 weeks pregnant when she went into labor in the early hours of the morning on Jan. 29. Knowing that her daughter was coming and urged the baby’s father, firefighter Prescott Caisey, to call an ambulance and take them to Milford Regional Medical Center.
“I told him, ‘I need to, you know, get ready because I think the baby’s going to come,’” Alvarez told Spectrum News, explaining that her contractions had been “10 to 15 minutes apart” when she went to bed the night before. I kind of knew birth was coming, but not right that night. … And as I got up to start getting ready, my contractions just hit me like a truck.”
Help arrived quickly after from a familiar face: emergency medical technician (EMT) Ruben Torres. The paramedic, who’s also a full-time Worcester firefighter, told WCVB 5 Boston that Caisesy was one of his EMS instructors when he was training to join the Worcester Fire Department.
“I asked them, ‘Which hospital are we going to?’ and Ruben looks up at me and says ‘Memorial’ and we locked eyes and it clicked,” Caisey told WHDH TV-7 News. “I said, ‘Oh, I know you!’ It was a funny moment right there.”
Baby Mariah, who joins older sister Lilah, arrived during the drive to the hospital, WHDH TV-7 News reported. She weighed in at 6 lbs., 11 oz.
“The baby was excited to come into the world, and she came early,” Torres said to Spectrum News.
“I wasn’t expecting to have her in the ambulance. It was super nerve-wracking,” Alvarez told WCVB-5 Boston. “Not having medication, not being in the hospital was super scary for me, but I was able to do it.”
But Caisey said that he knew Alvarez would be taken care of seeing Torres there. “Seeing him being one of the EMS providers that nigh, I knew that she was in good hands. He had trained me in the fire academy, doing EMS and everything,” Caisey said to Spectrum News. “I could say I trust pretty much anyone in the fire department I work with my life if I really needed to. So, you know, in that case in time, if he was there to give birth to her, I knew she was in good hands, you know, it would all work out right.”
And Alvarez felt just as safe. “She told me afterwards, ‘Ruben was a rock star, he knew what he was doing, and it made me feel more comfortable knowing that you guys knew each other,’ ” Caisey recalled to WCVB-5 Boston.
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Torres has delivered seven children over his decades-long career in EMS. He told the outlet that Mariah was his first baby girl.
This was his partner Kevin Carlucci’s first time assisting with a delivery, according to Telegram & Gazette.
“Almost every one of our calls is on someone’s worst day,” he told WCVB. “Being on a call where we are able to have a miracle, it was such an unbelievable experience and definitely a call I’ll never forget.”
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