The snow was blowing, the wind howling, when Ethan Phillip Nylund entered the world at 3:02 a.m. Monday, and Deputy Sheriff Tony Mayns was there to catch him.
“He just shot right into my arms,” Mayns said, chuckling.
Jason Nylund, a heavy-equipment operator for Douglas County, said he and his wife, Stephanie, left their Bailey home at 1 a.m. for the hospital but that the road conditions were atrocious.
“It was snowing like crazy. It was a blizzard,” said Jason Nylund, 23. “The roads were so bad.”
At 2:52 a.m., Nylund was on the phone to a Jefferson County dispatcher who was telling him how to deliver a baby. Then he spotted deputies Mayns and Craig Nelson on U.S. 285.
They had a quick discussion about whether they wanted to try to make it to the hospital in Littleton.
The decision by the Bailey couple, who have one other child, 4-year-old Elise, was to deliver the baby in their car, a Dodge Durango. Stephanie Nylund’s contractions were one minute apart.
Nylund comforted his 24-year-old wife, and Mayns stood by as the baby’s head appeared.
Within seconds, the baby was in the deputy’s arms. “It happened incredibly fast,” Nylund said.
Moments later, the Indian Hill Volunteer Fire Department arrived and helped the couple and the two deputies.
Ethan weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces.
“He is fantastic. Stephanie is fantastic. It was picture perfect,” Nylund said. “It was exciting, something I will never forget.”
He said he is grateful to Mayns and Nelson: “They did absolutely fantastic.”
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
