These Philly Cops Had Quite The Christmas Surprise

Christmas may be a holiday of surprises, but two police officers probably didn't expect Santa to deliver a newborn baby during their evening shift. Late on Christmas, two Philadelphia police officers delivered a baby on a subway, after receiving 911 calls that a woman was going into labor while on the underground train. Consider it a true Christmas miracle.

NBC Philadelphia reports that a woman riding the Market Frankford Line through the center of Philadelphia unexpectedly went into labor. With no doctors or medics around, the other subway passengers began helping the woman while they waited for police.

"I helped relax her and a couple of other people helped her as well ... told her to relax, to take some breaths," passenger Toney Harris-Saunders told NBC Philadelphia. He added that the experience was a "phenomena."

Fortunately, the subway train eventually stopped to let on two Southern Pennsylvania Transit Authority officers, who then helped the woman safely deliver her baby — a boy — and removed the umbilical cord from the baby's neck. They then placed the newborn in the woman's arms while they waited for the paramedics to arrive. The baby's father reportedly wrapped the child in a shirt to stay warm.

SEPTA Police Sgt. Daniel Caban told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the baby was already crowning by the time he arrived at the train. He told fellow SEPTA Officer Darrell James to "get your gloves ready."

"Everything just happened so quick but it was amazing," James added to NBC Philadelphia.

SEPTA Chief Thomas J. Nestel III tweeted his excitement and praise for the surprise subway birth on Christmas night. He added that he waived the train fare for the newborn baby, because that's only fair (no word if he waived the mother's fare, too).

Baby's first subway ride — definitely one for the scrapbooks.

Image: screenshot/Twitter