Principal, teacher help deliver fellow teacher's baby at school
The 2-pound baby was born in the Texas school's bathroom.
For one Texas school, the start of the new school year included an unexpected delivery.
Amy Simmons, the principal of Cunningham Elementary School in Wichita Falls, Texas, and one of her teachers, Ashley Strain, helped deliver a fellow teacher's baby in the school's bathroom.
"Obviously, neither one of us have done that before," Simmons told "Good Morning America" of the unexpected first in her 23rd year of working in education.
Simmons said she was leading a job interview on Aug. 28, when she received a text message from Strain letting her know that one of her classroom aides, Paige Lockstedt, was not feeling well.
At the time, Lockstedt was 30 weeks pregnant with her second child, according to Strain and Simmons.
Simmons said she responded to Strain to send her aide home, and was starting to type a second message recommending Lockstedt go to the doctor's office when Strain called her phone.
"Ms. Strain called and told me that Paige's water broke, so I just took off running down the hallway," Simmons recalled.
Knowing they had to act quickly to get Lockstedt to the front of the school for an ambulance to pick her up, Simmons and Strain said they grabbed a wheelchair from the school nurse's office as they called 911.
When they reached the front entrance of the school just moments later, they said Lockstedt told them she wouldn't make it to the hospital.
"Paige was like, 'This baby is coming,' and we were like, 'No, it can't come yet,'" Simmons said. "We didn't have a choice, so Paige ran into the bathroom. Ashley ran in behind her. I ran in behind Ashley, and Ashley caught [the] baby."
Within seconds, Simmons and Strain had helped to deliver Lockstedt's daughter, who weighed 2 pounds, 9 ounces at birth.
Simmons said she got paper towels from the dispenser in the bathroom to use to wrap the baby, and Ashley rubbed the baby's chest until they could see that she was breathing.
When firefighters and EMTs arrived just moments later, both women said they breathed a deep sigh of relief.
From the time Lockstedt's water broke to the time she and her newborn were taken by ambulance to a local hospital was nine minutes, according to Strain.
The delivery was so fast and seamless that students at the elementary school, including Lockstedt's older daughter, had no idea it happened, according to Simmons, who instructed her assistant principal to keep the school's 400 students in their classrooms.
"Ashley went back to teaching. I went to lunch duty, and we had a staff meeting at the end of the day after school," Simmons said. "So, we just kind of continued on with our day."
The newborn, whom Lockstedt named Isabella, is healthy but remains hospitalized because she was born around 10 weeks premature, according to Lockstedt.
"I am just so happy and thankful that my baby is doing great. It was obviously very unexpected and the scariest moments of my life," she told "GMA" in a statement. "I am very grateful for Ashley and Mrs. Simmons. They handled the situation in the best way possible. I appreciate all the well wishes and prayers. My focus now is to get little Isabella home."
Lockstedt was discharged from the hospital and was able to thank Simmons and Strain in person when they reunited at school.
"The first words that I said to her when I walked out in the hallway and saw her, I was like, 'I can't believe that happened,'" Simmons said. "And she said, 'I know I can't either.'"
Strain added, "Those were my second words after I said, 'I miss you. I need you back.'"
Simmons noted her elementary school currently has four pregnant teachers.
"I've told them, 'We are not repeating this scenario. It was one-and-done. No one else is allowed to do that," Simmons said.
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