No one ever wants to see lights and sirens in the rear view mirror, but the timing couldn't have been better for a pregnant Granbury woman.
Deputy constable Mark Diebold, who was trying to slow the couple down, ended up helping deliver their baby.
"I've not even come close to being by a birth that happened on a traffic stop," he said.
Diebold was on his way to work when he says an SUV blew past him on U.S. 377 in Benbrook. He turned on his lights and sirens to slow down the driver, he said.
"I knew I was speeding," said Granbury resident Caleb Hall.
But Hall had a good reason why. They were rushing to the hospital because his wife, Destiny Hall, was in labor.
"We pulled up to the stop light at the same time, and I was able to roll my window down and just say 'Hey, she's having this baby, we got to get to the hospital,'" Caleb Hall recalled.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
The baby couldn't wait.
"As soon as my water broke, I could feel her coming out," Destiny Hall said.
Less than a minute later, in the closest parking lot they could find, Diebold helped deliver their baby girl in the front seat of the family's SUV.
"She started crying and we both were ecstatic, jumping, screaming, 'The baby's here!,'" Diebold said. "It was a wonderful experience. It was one I'll never forget."
Diebold visited Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth Monday, where Destiny Hall and the baby were taken after the delivery.
"This kind of brings back down to why most of us became police officers, to help people for things like this," Diebold said. "This really reaffirmed my job for me."
Though it isn't the birth she pictured, Destiny Hall said, "It's better than I pictured it."
The family is still trying to choose a name for their daughter. They say they had a name picked out but want to find a better one that fits the unusual way she came into the world.
