VAN NUYS

LAPD Officers Help Woman Deliver Baby Outside Van Nuys Convenience Store

"Are you having a baby!?" one officer can be heard saying in the body cam recording of the call.

NBC Universal, Inc.

Two officers with the Los Angeles Police Department embodied the "protect and serve" motto on Wednesday, when they responded to a call about a woman screaming outside a convenience store in Van Nuys and ended up helping that woman deliver her baby.

"Me and my partner received a radio call of a screaming woman," said Officer Juan Sierra of the LAPD.

And like most calls for help, Sierra and his partner, Officer Paar -- who's just 13 weeks out of the academy -- didn't quite know what they were walking into.

"We believed we would be confronted by a female possibly suffering from a mental crisis," Sierra said.

But when they arrived, he said, "it was completely different."

The two officers arrived early Wednesday morning to find a woman going into labor outside the convenience store.

Body cam video caught the shocking moment the officers realized what was going on.

"Are you having a baby!?" Sierra can be heard saying in the recording.

"My immediate thought was, we need to take care of this baby and the mother," he recalled. So they "put our gloves on and got involved."

The baby was delivered just moments after, but not without a serious scare.

"The baby wasn’t breathing or wouldn’t cry and that’s when panic started to set in a little bit," Sierra said.

But when the baby began crying just a few moments later, "it was a sigh of relief for everybody."

The LAPD said the mom and baby were taken to a nearby hospital and are doing well. As for Sierra and his partner, it's a call for service they'll never forget.

"Every day I come with a positive attitude and just be of service, that’s all I can do," Sierra said.

Contact Us