Kona police officer helps wife deliver their baby

KAILUA-KONA — A police officer on Hawaii’s Big Island delivered his own baby in his patrol car on the side of a highway.

Kona police officer Mario Ochoa was driving his wife Ryan to the hospital Tuesday morning when she said the baby was coming.

Hawaii News Now reported Ochoa told his wife to try to hold on, but they were 10 miles from the hospital, so the officer pulled over along Highway 190 in Waimea.

Ochoa says everything happened quickly. But he had enough time to put gloves on before his daughter, Marcella, was born on the passenger seat of his squad car. Then they waited for an ambulance.

His wife was in labor for 30 hours with their first child, Ronan, so the couple thought they had more time.