Military police officer delivers baby at post gate

FORT CARSON, Colo. — Sgt. Dominik Marciano's Mazda became a delivery room earlier this month when his pregnant wife couldn't wait to get to the hospital.

But he didn't know how to handle a childbirth, so he asked the question of a 20-year-old military policewoman just about to leave her shift at a Fort Carson, Colo., gate.

"I was like, 'I do!,' " Pfc. Laryn Rodgers remembered saying. " 'Let's do this!' "

And so Rodgers prepped Marciano's wife, Lindsay, during the labor based mostly on her observance of animal births at the family farm in southern Illinois. Everyone assumed their positions, and "several pushes later, we had little Giovanni," Rodgers said.

That was far from the end of the drama, first reported in The (Colorado Springs, Colo.) Gazette.

"He started turning blue ... instead of pink and crying," Rodgers said. "We all kind of looked at each other, and something had to be done."

Rodgers remembered her father using a suction device to remove blockages from the airways of newborn animals. Such a device isn't exactly a standard-issue Army item.

Instead, she sucked the mucus out with her mouth, and to the relief of the entire car, "he finally cried."

Medical responders and firefighters reached the scene about that time and took over, Rodgers said. Dominik Marciano, 22, was able to cut the cord in the front seat of his car before his wife, 21, was transferred to an ambulance.

He said his wife was in labor with their first child — Kinsley, now 3 years old — for about seven hours.

"We knew that my son was going to come quick, but we didn't think two hours quick," Dominik Marciano said.

The plan had been to take Kinsley to an on-post babysitter then head to the hospital. Her little brother had other ideas, and Kinsley stayed in a small office near the gate with another soldier while the delivery unfolded.

The Marcianos plan to remain in contact with their impromptu midwife regardless of where future assignments may take them.

"This isn't something you kind of brush off," Dominik Marciano said. "She brought my son into the world and made sure that he was healthy. ... I know that we're definitely going to keep in touch."