Troopers help newborn make his debut
At 7 pounds and 10 ounces, Colby Sam LaGrassa made an arresting entrance into the world -- delivered smoothly by four troopers in the parking lot of the State Police barracks in Danvers.
"I don't know what I would have done without them . . . we're so grateful," said the baby's mother, Robin LaGrassa, 30, who gave birth to her son in the front seat of her Volvo station wagon Saturday night while her husband stood by.
At a news conference at Massachusetts General Hospital yesterday, LaGrassa sat in a wheelchair with 3-day-old Colby in her arms as she and her husband recounted the events leading to the birth. Ronald LaGrassa said that around 8 p.m. Saturday, his wife began having minor contractions in their Middleton home. He immediately dropped off the couple's daughter, 1-year-old Lily, at his parents' house and returned home. The couple, who own a Boston restaurant, waited three hours until the contractions grew stronger, and then started the half-hour drive to Mass. General.
"We left the house at 11:20," Ronald LaGrassa said. "Thirty seconds later, her water broke."
Ronald called the hospital, which instructed him to call 911. He told the dispatcher the State Police barracks in Danvers was just down the road, and they agreed to meet the ambulance there. "Nothing could stop me," Robin LaGrassa said. "I told my husband, this baby is going to be born -- whether it's in the car, in the street, wherever."
That's when Troopers Walter Keenan, Michael Forni, Ronald Baker, and Anthony Schena -- all State Police veterans, and all fathers -- stepped in. They ran out to the parking lot and smoothly guided the delivery -- Schena holding the baby's head while Baker, a certified emergency medical technician, stood by.
"It was probably the scariest thing I've done on this job . . . knowing someone's life is in your hands," Schena said.
But by 11:39 p.m. (the official time of birth), Colby LaGrassa was safely in his mother's arms.
"It was incredible," Ronald LaGrassa told the troopers yesterday, each one taking a turn holding tiny Colby.
"It was an honor to be there," Forni said. "We're all surrogate fathers, I guess."
