DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – There was no time to rush a mother giving birth into the delivery room in Volusia County Thursday afternoon.
The only people to help in the lobby at Halifax Health Hospital at the time was a nurse and Sheriff Mike Chitwood.
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"The only two orders I gave were, 'Clear the back seat,' and I told the dad, 'Get back there and hold your wife's hand,'" the sheriff said.
Chitwood said he was standing in the middle of the lobby when someone ran inside saying, "She's having a baby!"
"When we got out there, you could clearly see the baby was crowning." Chitwood said. "(A nurse) said, 'We have to lay her down. You have to help me lay her down.'"
"No one was there but me and the sheriff, so I said, 'You want to go with me?'" nurse Ann Ussery said.
Ussery said they had to act fast and that she knew they weren't going to make it inside the hospital.
"She's like, 'I'm going to have it in the car?' I was like, 'You've got something to talk about, because the sheriff is here also,' and it was just so fast, and her husband was on his knees in the front seat watching," Ussery said.
Chitwood said he would have never thought he would help deliver a baby.
He was so excited about what happened, he posted a picture of him and Ussery on Facebook.
Ussery said delivering a baby is always a day to remember, but this time she had the sheriff by her side.
"It was awesome," she said. "It made my day. He ran to me, and I ran to him, and we hugged, and I said, 'Thank you for helping me.'"
"It was the safest birth in Volusia County today," Chitwood said. "Not many can say that the sheriff was standing by to protect the birth."
The sheriff got to visit with the family after they were all settled into the hospital.
The parents named the little girl Heidi. Chitwood said he will be making Heidi an honorary sheriff's deputy.
Chitwood went to visit the new parents at Halifax Health Hospital and posed for a picture with the family. "Thank you to all the incredible people at Halifax Health who bring babies into the world and save lives every day," the Volusia County Sheriff wrote on his Facebook page.