Flagler Sheriff’s Deputy Ensures Safe Birth Of a Hurried Baby at a Palm Coast Home

Tara Williams and Bobby Edge have a young son together. Bobby Jordan Edge is a year and three months old. “We made it to the hospital with him,” his father recalls, referring to the day of his son’s birth.

That’s not how it happened with Cameron James Edge, who was in a hurry to be born–and announced himself  at around 4:30 a.m. Thursday, to his parents’ astonishment.

Tara, 28, had just taken a hot bath. She walked into the bedroom and told Bobby (the older Bobby, not the son) that she wasn’t feeling well: she was going into labor.

“I went to go get the cell phone, and then she said she felt the head pop out,” Bobby said by phone this evening. “I said you’ve got to be kidding, you’re three weeks until you’re due. By the time I got the telephone number dialed she was holding the baby in her hands and was down on the floor.”

That’s how Erik Pedersen, a Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy, found her and the baby. Pederson was patrolling in the area and was able to respond to the 911 call immediately with Cpl. Reynolds. They could hear Tara from outside the house on Slatington Place, screaming.

“As we walked into the residence I observed Tara Williams sitting on the living room floor crying and holding an infant child, which was located in her shorts,” Pedersen reported. “I could only see the head of the baby and it appeared to be blue. Tara stated she was unsure if the baby was all the way out but could feel it moving.” The deputy—by then gloved—proceeded to use a pair of scissors from the kitchen to cut away the garments and gain access to the baby to make sure that the umbilical cord wasn’t wrapped around his head. As it turned oput, the baby had, in fact, been fully delivered.

“I took the baby from Tara and stimulated him by rubbing him to make him cry so the airway would be cleared,” Petersen reported. Babies normally are born blue, and “pink up” as they begin to breathe. “The baby turned pink after a few minutes of crying and Tara and the baby appeared to have no obvious complications.”

Witnessing the whole thing was Cameron’s big brother, who, for all his 15 months, knew that he was now a big brother: he kept pointing at his mother and his brother and telling his dad that he had a brother. “He was very good about it,” Bobby—his father—said. Tara had been pretty frightened. Bobby, for his part, said he was OK. “I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff.” But he was impressed by the deputy taking control of the situation, and then the swarm of deputies and rescue personnel making sure everything was OK.

Paramedics from Flagler County’s Rescue 92 arrived at the scene quickly as well, though according to their report of the incident, everything by then was under control and normal. Rescue 92 took the baby to Ormond Memorial Hospital. Bobby doesn’t remember if the paramedics cut the umbilical cord or merely clamped it for it to be cut at the hospital.

Barely 36 hours later, Tara was walking around and talking about going back to work in a few days (she is a server at Perkins). She did just that after her first child: she was back at work six days later.

Cameron James Edge, by the way—now almost two days old—is doing fine. He weighed 4 pounds 6 ounces.