North Carolina Woman Delivers Baby at Bus Stop, Mom Names Baby After Her

Nov. 10, 2012 — -- A University of North Carolina graduate student didn't let two toddlers, a language barrier and no medical experience get in the way of stepping in to help deliver a woman's baby at a bus stop.

Emily Brewer's day got off to an odd start when her extremely reliable babysitter didn't show up to care for Brewer's 2-year-old son, Dylan. When she couldn't get ahold of the babysitter, she decided to take Dylan to the UNC campus, where he loves listening to the chimes from the bell tower.

After the noon chimes, Brewer, 36, headed back to the bus stop with her son.

"I was waiting for the bus, and while I was waiting a woman I did not know, clearly in distress, comes and gets me and asks me to go into the bus shelter where her pregnant friend is sitting in a squat position and was holding open the hem of her pants," Brewer told ABCNews.com.

She saw that the woman's water had broken and immediately sprung into action by calling 911. The woman, later identified as Anguilar Lopez, spoke only Spanish. Brewer does not speak Spanish but used some Italian to find out that Lopez was 38 weeks pregnant.

"I have no medical training, but I'm a mom," Brewer said.

On the 911 call, Brewer can be heard saying, "Hi, there's a woman who's going into labor right now at a bus shelter at the corner of Cameron and South Columbia," according to ABC News' Raleigh-Durham affiliate WTVD-TV.

Moments later, she told the operator, "Oh my God, the baby was just born. The baby is here."

"The baby drops out," Brewer told ABCNews.com. "The baby was born without contractions or screaming. It just falls into her pants."

The dispatcher gave Brewer instructions, which she followed scrupulously as her son and another child who had been with the pregnant woman and her friend sat by patiently.

"I used the scarf to wipe off the baby's little nose and little mouth, and then the dispatcher instructed me to keep the baby warm and then find a shoelace," she said. The dispatcher told her to tie the shoelace around the umbilical cord about six inches from the baby, but not to cut it.

After she had done so, paramedics arrived and took the mother and child to the hospital. Brewer couldn't stop thinking about them all day and went to the hospital in the evening with her family to make sure Lopez was OK.

"If you go through labor, every single individual who comes into your life in those 24 or 48 hours, they become the most critical people in your world because they're there in the most important time of your life when you're most vulnerable and you most need help," she said. "And they're seared into your memory forever."

Lopez wanted Brewer to hold the baby and asked her to write down her name.

"She wanted me to hold her baby," she said. "The baby was eight hours old and just a beautiful, wrinkly, calm little baby wrapped up very tightly in the blanket."

Brewer later found out that Lopez had named her little girl Emily after her.

"By complete happenstance, not because I had the training, not for any other reason than I happened to be there, I am now part of this woman's story and of her child's life story," she said. "And it's an incredible honor and undeserved that she named her daughter after me."

Brewer hopes that the two families can stay in touch, since they live in the same town and share a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

"I don't think I did a single thing that any other mother who had been put in that position would have done," Brewer said. "I don't think I deserved that honor, but I'm committed to earning it. I'm going to be sending this little child presents every year on her birthday."