“The baby is safe. She is destined for something great,” said officers who helped the woman and her newborn baby get to the hospital in time.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on June 18, 2021. It has since been updated.
Trigger Warning: This story contains details of early labor and vehicle accidents that may be disturbing to readers.
Tessie Heeter— who was 33 weeks pregnant in August 2018— was driving her husband Jon to the train station when she met with an unfortunate accident. A 15-year-old with a driver’s permit reportedly ran a red light and slammed into her car at 65 mph, according to The Epoch Times.
“As I waited to turn left into the station, the light turned yellow. I saw two cars approaching the intersection from the opposite direction, and since the car in front was clearly stopping, I proceeded to turn. Unbeknownst to me, the car that had been behind the other sped up, ran the red light, and hit our car,” Heeter shared her horrifying experience with Love What Matters.
“The whiplash I experienced at the time of impact knocked me out,” Heeter said. Due to the impact of the accident, Heeter had a severe concussion and temporary amnesia. Jon, however, had three fractures in his pelvis and three broken ribs. Luck really was in their favor that day because their son Hart, who was right behind Jon’s seat, got away completely unscathed.
Soon enough, people gathered around and did everything in their power to free the couple and their child from the wrecked car. “I remember panic and a feeling of watching my life play out on a big screen, but I also remember wondering if all those people were angels.”
“We never found out who any of those strangers were, but they’ll forever be a part of my story, and I’ll never stop being grateful for unselfish humans.”
Once Heeter was in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital, paramedics asked for her basic details, like her name, but she was unable to remember. “There’s a strange internal panic that happens when you realize you don’t know your own name, the one thing you have been responding to since before you understood words.” In fact, she couldn’t even recall that she was pregnant.
Soon, reality began to set in, and she was told that the first responders couldn’t find her baby’s heartbeat in the ambulance. Before panic set in, she was informed by a nurse that they’d managed to find it once she got to the hospital. “I also learned I was in preterm labor, with contractions coming every 3-5 minutes. I was given medication to slow my contractions, and they sent me home.” But, Jon had to remain hospitalized for four nights because of his fractures.
Three days after she was discharged, her contractions got unbearable.” I immediately knew I needed help” and she texted her brother who lived “about 20 minutes away.” She dove into the back seat of his car as soon as he pulled up. Though she begged her brother to rush to the hospital, her baby couldn’t wait to come out.
She felt something “between my legs and pulled my shorts off. It felt like a water balloon.” With the next contraction, her second child was in her arms. “I pulled something warm to my chest, but it wasn’t a baby. I was holding a bubble, soft and squishy, warm with something hard inside.” What she’d held close to her wasn’t a baby: it was the amniotic sac. However, her instincts kicked in.
“I pulled the film until it broke, and saw big blue eyes staring up as street lights flashed above us,” she recalled. “I knew there should be crying, movement, signs of life, but this little thing just kept blinking at me.” She soon realized that the baby couldn’t breathe. “I put my mouth over this impossibly small mouth and nose, and sucked the fluid out of the baby’s lungs,” she said. “I didn’t have a blanket, so I slipped this small body under my tank top, and the sweet thing latched.”
It was then she could see that her baby was a girl. Eventually, Heeter’s brother stopped the car and hailed a police officer who realized the woman was shaking due to the adrenalin rush. “The baby is safe. You are incredible. You were made for this moment. She is destined for something great,” they told her while calling the paramedics who arrived soon. Unlike her previous journey to the hospital, this one was filled with happiness, though the baby was premature.
Almost three years later, the Heeters are now a happy family of five. Heeter jokes that, during her third pregnancy, she made it to the hospital with her baby, a boy named Whit.
A few months after the accident, the family found out that there were two girls in the car with the 15-year-old boy who crashed into them. “He was driving a car from the 90s that was uninsured.” One girl had to have leg surgery and the other multiple eye surgeries. Despite the accident, Heeter felt compassion for the teenager. “His mom worked multiple part-time jobs and he lived with aunts and cousins. It was likely he was responsible for driving the girls to school because no one else could, even being fifteen and driving an uninsured vehicle.”
Finally, Heeter concluded by saying, “We weren’t owed more time together, we didn’t deserve to be spared when so many others experience endless pain. But I will never stop being grateful we were given another shot to live a simple life.”