Off-duty Pregnant Firefighter Helps Trapped Woman While in Labor
Ignoring her own contractions, she helped restore calm.
The first thing Megan Warfield did was get out of her damaged car. Returning home from an event in honor of her late father, Warfield’s car was involved in a pile-up collision in Baltimore, MD, where she is a volunteer firefighter. Noticing that one of the other cars had overturned, Warfield rushed to help calm the woman trapped inside.
“I started to climb in there with her, but then I was like, 'What are you doing? You're nine months pregnant,'" she told People. "I ended up holding onto her to keep her in place because I wasn't sure of her injuries at the time.”
Running on adrenaline
Megan Warfield was "just a week or so shy of her due date" when the crash occurred, according to her volunteer fire department. And the crash apparently sent her into labor.
Ignoring increasingly painful contractions, Warfield kept the trapped woman calm and ensured that she stayed in place so as not to risk aggravating any injuries. When the emergency responders arrived, among them was Volunteer Paramedic Josh Daugherty, Warfield’s boyfriend. Daugherty gave aid not only to the injured woman but sent Warfield by ambulance to hospital.
Warfield was taken to Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, where, several hours later, she gave birth to her third child, whom she and Daugherty named Charlotte.
"I don't know how I did what I did because the cramping was so bad," Warfield said during an appearance on the Today show. "I must've just been running on adrenaline."
Volunteering as a way of life
According to the US Fire Administration, there are a total of 1,064,000 active career, volunteer, and paid-per-call firefighters representing nearly 88 percent of registered personnel. Of the active firefighting personnel, more than half, 53 percent, are volunteer firefighters.
A volunteer firefighter is an unpaid professional who saves people from fires and other emergency situations, the Indeed Career Guide states. They're in charge of responding to emergency calls, putting out and preventing the spread of fires, and administering first aid to people with injuries. They may help keep people safe during and after house and building fires, car accidents, forest fires, and hazardous materials incidents. All volunteer firefighters must pass rigorous training to become qualified.
While she was pregnant, Warfield worked the desk in her volunteer fire department. Now that she’s given birth, she is already planning her return to the field.
"I've been itching to get back out," she told Today. "It's what I was meant to do."
Warfield’s volunteer department called Warfield "a true public servant" in its Facebook post, adding, "Since no good deed should go unrecognized, we wanted to highlight Megan's heroic and selfless actions. Congratulations Momma Megan, Job Well Done!"
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