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Unexpected miracle in Lot R
Emergency stop at Auraria becomes an officer-assisted birth
By Michael Godfrey
mgodfre3@mscd.edu

Photo by Jenn LeBlanc • jkerriga@mscd.edu Hannah Brittany Mihlstin was born at 5:07 a.m. in Auraria parking lot R to Andrew and Joanne Mihlstin. Auraria police officer Debra Krause helped deliver the baby girl in their Jeep. The family was later taken to Exempla St. Joseph’s Hospital, the intended delivery location.

A Metro parking lot was the site of an unexpected delivery in the early morning of Oct. 24.

At 5:07 a.m., Hannah Brittany Mihlstin took a breath and let out a soft cry for the first time in her life.

Her parents, Joanne and Andrew Mihlstin, woke up in an unusual and hurried manner just three hours earlier in their Conifer home.

“I started to feel contractions around 2:30 this morning,” said Joanne, who related how she then turned to her sleeping husband to tell him it was time. “I told him to get towels, lots of them, and I woke up my 5-year-old daughter and told her that we had to go to the hospital.”

The three got into their Jeep and began the 40-minute drive to Denver.

“She kept telling me that she was having the contractions every four minutes, but I said no, that was eight minutes ago, anything that would get her mind off of it,” Andrew said.

Andrew sped east on U.S. Highway 285 and north onto C-470, knowing he had to do something quickly. “I was doing about 90 mph,” Andrew said, “trying to get a cop to pull me over so I could get an escort, but you can never find a cop when you need one.”

The family then met up with a friend at Federal and Evans to drop their daughter off and continue on to Exempla St. Joseph’s Hospital. Andrew was running red lights and was on Sixth Avenue when his wife expressed concern. “I knew I had to find a fire station or police station,” he said. “I knew there was one by Auraria Campus. Joanne screamed that the baby was coming, and I reached down and felt the head of the baby, and I knew I needed to do something quick.”

It was then that he looked around Speer and saw a police car on campus. Andrew flashed his lights and honked his horn before he pulled up to the officer’s car and asked if she had ever delivered a baby before.

“I saw a cop car in the parking lot, and I pulled next to her. She must have thought I was a terrorist,” he said.

Debra Krause, an Auraria police officer, responded and called an ambulance and said though she had no experience in human births, she had delivered calves.

Krause grabbed a few towels and delivered the baby on the spot while Andrew spoke to a 911 dispatcher.

“I was also puking,” Andrew said. “So I was puking and trying to help my wife give birth to our daughter.”

This was Joanne’s third delivery. Her other children were born by cesarean section and induction.

“This was a whole different thing for me, doing it the natural way,” Joanne said. “But it went by so quickly, and Officer Krause did such a wonderful job. She has a good head on her shoulders.”

Krause, who had no training in delivering a baby experienced only one challenge when birthing Hannah.

“She noticed that (the baby) was having trouble breathing,” Andrew said. “But then she reached into Hannah’s mouth and pulled out some mucus and she began to breath. It must have been maternal instinct, because I didn’t know what to do.”

Paramedics arrived shortly after Hannah was born and helped calm down the parents and finish the delivery of the child.

“A delivery is a delivery, I guess, and this was one experience we won’t forget,” Andrew said. “Maybe we could send Hannah to Metro when she grows up, maybe to be an EMT.”

The Metropolitan attempted to contact Krause for this story, but she was unavailable for comment.

Dolores Hernandez contributed to this report.