Ila Perry chose a good spot to stop.
On Sunday morning, as the Gainesville resident was in labor, her husband pulled into the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office parking lot hoping for a miracle.
He had been on the line with a 911 operator, and en route to the hospital when the operator told him to pull over.
With the help of the operator — and two Alachua County Sheriff’s Office deputies — 29-year-old Mrs. Perry delivered a baby in the passenger seat of their Chevrolet Suburban. Her husband, Robert Perry, and the deputies tied the baby’s umbilical cord with a shoestring.
Chris Privette, who along with Sam Caouette helped deliver the baby, said despite his training, he never expected to deliver a child.
“It happened quick enough, I didn’t have time to be nervous,” he said.
The ambulance arrived minutes later and took the woman and her healthy son, John William Perry, to the hospital.
Mrs. Perry said she was in disbelief when she realized her son would be born in a parking lot.
“He wanted to be born then, so he was born then,” she said.
In the chaos, Mrs. Perry forgot to bring a stuffed animal she had already picked out for John, but when the deputies visited them in the hospital they brought a stuffed lion.
“He still got his birthday stuffed animal like all my other children,” she said.
@merylkornfield
mkornfield@alligator.org
An Alachua County Sheriff's deputy holds John William Perry who was born in the ACSO parking.
