Dec. 27—WARRENSBURG — One local couple received an early Christmas gift this year with the early arrival of their baby boy during a snowstorm Christmas Eve with the assistance of Warrensburg EMS on I-87.
Angela Mondella woke up early Tuesday, feeling small contractions 38 weeks along her pregnancy on Christmas Eve morning. Her husband, Joe Mondella, said his wife woke him up at about 1:30 a.m.
“I called the doctor, they told me we should start making our way to the hospital,” Angela Mondella said. “About 15 minutes later my water broke, and that’s when the labor started, full-blown. Contractions were like a minute apart from that point on. Me and my husband were trying to get out of the house with our two-year-old.”
The couple had planned to bring their two-year-old to a relative’s house and then go to the hospital to give birth, but baby Luca Mondella had other plans. When the couple and their older child got into the car around 2:15 a.m., Angela realized they were not going to make it to the hospital, and the couple called 911.
“At first I was like are you sure we need to call 911?” Joe Mondella said. “And she was like you either need to call 911 or take me to the fire station or something. So, I called 911 and the dispatch said for us to go to Warrensburg EMS, which was only like a half a mile away.”
Angela’s contractions were less than a minute apart, their toddler was getting upset in the backseat and it was snowing pretty hard. Joe Mondella said that was thankfully when they saw the flashing lights of a Warrensburg EMS ambulance.
“It must have been less than three minutes from the time dispatch called them until the time they got to the station where we met them,” Joe Mondella said. “They introduced themselves and got Angela in the ambulance and said we’re going to go to Glens Falls Hospital.
Joe followed the ambulance in his truck with their toddler.
“All the sudden as we got south of Exit 22, they pulled over on the side of the highway,” Joe Mondella said. “For me, I’ve never seen an ambulance with its sirens on just pull over, so I thought something was wrong. I pull over and I jumped out of my truck.”
Angela said at that point her contractions felt like they were coming only 30 seconds apart and she told the three men in the ambulance she felt like she needed to push.
“I could feel the baby’s head about to come out,” Angela Mondella said. “On my third push the baby just came out, all at once, under the blanket, and then there he was, and that’s when we pulled over.”
Angela had successfully delivered a healthy 5lbs, 13 oz, baby boy. It had only been a short amount of time since the couple had called 911 at 2:22 a.m. and baby Luca was born at 2:41 a.m.
The ambulance then proceeded to make its way to Glens Falls Hospital.
“When we got there, the entire emergency room staff was at the doors lined up and they were clapping and cheering as they wheeled us in and all the way up to The Snuggery,” Angela said.
The Mondellas say they are incredibly grateful for the three members of Warrensburg EMS who helped to deliver the baby, Corey Ouellette, Paramedic, President & CEO, John Arnold, Paramedic, Vice President & COO and Jack Bartlett, EMT, Vice President & CFO.
“It was pretty miraculous that they got there as fast as they did,” Joe Mondella said. “Because, if they hadn’t gotten there that fast I probably would have been driving down the Northway myself, in our truck, with our two-year-old in the back seat and Angela probably would have given birth in the passenger seat, because there was no way we would have made it in time.”
The Mondellas said that they plan to thank the three men from Warrensburg EMS and bring baby Luca there to meet the men who helped deliver him on the side of I-87 in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve in the coming days.
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“These guys were fast, they were super calm under pressure, it could not have been easy,” Joe Mondella said. “It was literally what I would call a snowstorm, it had to be, maybe 10 degrees outside and they went from probably sleeping to delivering a baby within 15 minutes. We’re just really thankful for those guys.”
Natasha Vaughn-Holdridge is a staff writer. Contact her at: 518-742-3320; nholdridge@poststar.com.
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