911 dispatcher helps woman deliver baby over the phone

Vanessa Moistner receives award for efforts

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Emergency dispatcher Vanessa Moistner receives award from Boone County Sheriff Ken Campbell. 
(Photo courtesy: Boone County)

Posted: 09/27/2012
Last Updated: 239 days ago

BOONE COUNTY, Ind. - It's one day at work Vanessa Moistner will never forget. As a Boone County 911 dispatcher, Moistner answered the phone back on July 28 when Dave and Elizabeth Harting called in with an emergency.

"We're delivering as we speak. I need an ambulance," Dave Harting told Moistner during his call to 911.

But there was no time to wait for that ambulance.

"I can see the baby's head," Dave Harting said in the 911 call.

Elizabeth Harting was about to deliver her third child, unexpectedly, at her Zionsville home, and she and her husband needed help.

"You just go into a certain mode and grab your paperwork you were trained to use," Moistner told RTV6.

Little Lily Jo is now two months old, calmly resting in her mother's arms after entering the world in some chaos.        

"My husband, I remember him running in and say it was a boy and think they told him it was a girl."

Elizabeth said she wasn't planning to give birth at home, but after waking up in the middle of the night, not feeling so well, "I said, 'Why don't I try to get back to sleep and then we can see how I feel in the morning,' and within a half hour, I was in full labor."

Moistner was recently recognized for her help, receiving an award from Powerphone, the emergency dispatch vendor for Boone County.

But she said knowing she helped bring little Lily Jo into the world was the best reward of all.

"I'm very lucky to help this family, and it doesn't come very often but I'm glad they are healthy and everyone is doing good," she said.

"We're just eternally grateful that she was there to talk my husband through everything and then he was able to talk me through, since we don't deliver babies every day," Elizabeth Harting said.

Elizabeth said she doesn't remember much from that night, but does remember Moistner keeping her husband calm and the time -- 3:19 a.m. -- when her daughter was born.

Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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