Iowa Police Pull over Couple in Labor
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iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — When police in Iowa saw a car barreling down a highway early Tuesday morning, they pursued it with sirens blaring and had to go so far as to throw spikes on the road to halt the car.
The couple inside the car, driving 30 mph above the speed limit, called 911 themselves to report the police officers pursuing them.
The man behind the wheel, Ben Kohnen, told the 911 operator he was racing his wife, Rachel, to the hospital to deliver the couple’s fourth child.
“I did not want him to stop,” said Rachel, who was the first to call 911. “I did not want to have a baby in the car.”
Ben Kohnen took over the 911 call for his wife after the operator failed to understand Rachel’s frantic call.
“Okay, I can’t…you need to calm down because I can’t understand what you’re saying,” the 911 operator said to Rachel.
“Ma’am, we are heading to the hospital,” Ben said after taking the phone from his wife. “My wife is having a baby and it’s coming out.”
Moments later, police laid the tire spikes on the road ahead of the Kohnens’ car, causing the car’s tires to pop.
Police ordered the couple to the ground, and then changed their course of action once they realized the situation.
“Once they figured out I was pregnant and very much in labor, they all responded in kind and really appropriately,” Rachel said of police.
Police escorted the couple to the hospital where Rachel gave birth to a healthy baby girl, named Hazel.
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