The snow was blowing, the wind howling, and when Ethan Phillip Nylund entered the world at 3:02 a.m. today, the waiting arms of Deputy Sheriff Tony Mayns were there to catch him.
“He just shot right into my arms,” Mayns said this morning, chuckling.
Jason Nylund, a heavy-equipment operator for Douglas County, said he and his wife, Stephanie, had left their Bailey home at 1 a.m. for the hospital, but the road conditions were atrocious.
“It was snowing like crazy. It was a blizzard,” said Jason Nylund, 23. “The roads were so bad.”
Nylund was on the phone to a Jefferson County dispatcher who was telling him how to deliver the baby when he spotted Mayns and Craig Nelson, another deputy, on U.S. 285 at Parmalee Gulch at 2:52 a.m..
They had a quick discussion on whether they wanted to try to make it to the hospital in Littleton or have the baby there.
The decision by the Bailey couple, who have one other child, 4-year-old Elise, was to have 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 Mayns’ arms.
Mayns said he has two kids of his own but did not deliver them.
“It happened incredibly fast,” Jason Nylund said of the birth.
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,” Jason Nylund said. “It was exciting, something I will never forget.”
He was grateful to deputies Mayns and Nelson, “They did absolutely fantastic. They were absolutely perfect.”
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
