Woman goes into labor on side of interstate in TN — then cop runs to help deliver baby

An officer rushed to assist a woman in labor on the side of an interstate in Tennessee and told her help was on the way — but the baby was coming quick.

Officer Dyllon Larson ended up delivering the woman’s healthy 8-pound, 2-ounce child himself, the City of Dickson said in a Sept. 26 news release.

The morning of Sept. 19 — which is Larson’s first child’s birthday — Larson responded to a call of a woman in active labor on the side of Interstate 40, officials said. Her water had broken about 20 minutes before, and she was driving herself to a hospital in Nashville but wasn’t going to make it in time, according to the release.

“I arrived on the scene at (6:09) and ran to the passenger side of the car and could tell the driver was having a contraction,” Larson said in the release. “Shortly after she had another, they were only a minute apart or less.”

Larson is no stranger to helping out in childbirth, as he had delivered his fourth child, officials said.

“I held her hand and reassured her that everything was going to be alright, that medical help is almost here,” he recalled.

But the medical help wasn’t going to arrive soon enough. The woman said the baby was on the way.

“I ran to the driver’s side of the car and lifted her dress to see the baby was beginning to crown,” Larson said. “Only a few short moments after that the baby was born. I immediately cleared anything I could from his mouth and stimulated his back until he was inhaling and exhaling, then gave him to mom.”

Emergency medical services arrived a few minutes after the birth and took the mom to the hospital she had been trying to reach, officials said.

Five days after the interstate birth, the woman stopped by the police department with her newborn, Theodore, who has five siblings, according to city officials.

“Officer Larson was very kind and extremely helpful, especially when it was so greatly needed,” the mom said. “My family cannot thank him enough for stopping to help us.”

She FaceTimed her family from the station so they could say hello to Larson.

This wasn’t the first time a Dickson police officer helped deliver a child on the side of a road, officials said. In November 2018, a sergeant assisted in a similar delivery.

Dickson is about a 40-mile drive west from downtown Nashville.