Special delivery: Baby born in Bend Subway parking lot

Brooke and Damon Frutos of Sisters were on their way to St. Charles Bend when it became fairly obvious that their baby did not want to wait any longer. They pulled over, into the Subway parking lot in northeast Bend — not for a sandwich, but for a very special delivery.

Damon called 911 and the dispatcher asked, as always, “Wat’s the address of your emergency?”

“Well, I’m currently on Highway 20 and my wife is labor,” Damon said.

It might not have been exactly where the Frutos planned to welcome their baby, but there was no time to wait.

“She said she felt the need to push, so that’s when I called 911 and pulled over,” Damon said.

Damon, who happens to be a paramedic for the Sisters-Camp Sherman Rural Fire District, stayed on the phone with 911 while he tried to get the back of the car ready for delivery.

“I never really expected my first field delivery to be my own child, in my car,” Damon said Monday, his wife and new daughter by his side.

Little Henley didn’t want to wait for that more traditional hospital birth.

“We were in the parking lot, and he was trying to get stuff ready in the back seat and I was delivering in the front seat,” Brooke said.

On the 911 recording, you hear Damon say, “Baby is out and crying,” and Henley’s first cries in the background.

Brook recalled, “She was crying, which is all, as a mom, I really listen for. And then I get to have her” in her arms.

Mom and new baby, the couple’s fourth, were transported to St. Charles for final check-ups and released the next day.

“I wasn’t worried,” Brooke said.”It didn’t hit me until I was at the hospital and somebody said, ‘Oh, you were on the news. And I went like — ‘that was us!'”

Now that Henley is happy, healthy and home, mom and dad have quite the story to tell — and plenty of jokes to listen to.

“People would say, ‘Good thing she wasn’t a boy, otherwise you would have to name her Jared.’ You know, it’s all Subway jokes,” Brooke said.

The Frutos family is all smiles from a very happy ending.

“God was watching out for us and took really good care of us in that car,” Brooke said.