Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 9, 1991 TAG: 9102090500
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MELANIE S. HATTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Seated on a couch, he looked into the baby's sleeping face and watched him yawn.
Candis, 37, of Roanoke, delivered James Jumper last Saturday morning before the rescue squad arrived. He had watched the birth of his own son six years ago and repeated what he remembered the nurses had done.
Now, Candis moved and the baby's eyes flickered open for a moment, then closed. A week earlier, Candis had been doubtful the baby would ever open its eyes.
He and his girlfriend were playing cards late last Friday with a neighbor, Mary Momoh, at Momoh's Northwest Roanoke home. As they played, Momoh's 18-year-old daughter began screaming from upstairs.
While Momoh ran to her daughter, Candis called the rescue squad and went upstairs. When he entered the room, Ladeta Jumper - eight months pregnant with her second child - clambered out of bed and pleaded with him to take her to the hospital.
"He's coming. He's coming," she screamed. "Take me to the hospital now! I need to go!"
Candis, who works in the housekeeping department of the Airport Marriott in Roanoke, tried to remain calm. Quietly, he was praying the baby wasn't ready to arrive.
He coaxed Ladeta back onto the bed and stroked her stomach, hoping she would relax. But Ladeta couldn't wait.
Candis saw the baby appear and took the newborn into his arms. He saw the baby boy's umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck. The baby's skin was pallid, and he made no sound.
"I thought he was dead," Candis said.
Candis quickly pulled the cord from the baby's neck, but the infant remained quiet. Without stopping to think, Candis asked for scissors and a washcloth and took a bottle of alcohol from the dresser.
"You don't know what you're doing!" Momoh shouted at Candis. She gave him her sewing scissors anyway.
"Oh Lord, he's going to kill the baby and my daughter," she said. Terrified, Momoh ran back and forth.
Candis cleaned the scissors with the alcohol and knotted the umbilical cord before cutting it.
He had cut the cord when his first son was born, and that flashed through his mind that night. He watched his son appear like "a little E.T. coming out" and saw the nurse clamp the cord before he cut it.
But Ladeta's baby was still pale and didn't appear to be breathing, he said. Holding the baby by his feet, Candis spanked his behind for several seconds.
"Lord, please bring this little guy back," he pleaded. The baby finally wiggled and began to wail.
"Oh I got him now, he's back alive," Candis exclaimed.
Ladeta, who lives with her mother and sister, said the baby was due in mid-March. She was not even scheduled to see the doctor until the end of the month.
"I was feeling fine that day," she said. Around midnight when she began to get cramps and soon realized it was time.
"When I heard him cry, . . . I was just sitting praying," she said.
The rescue squad arrived and took her and the baby to Roanoke Memorial Hospital. She was admitted Saturday morning and got the last room available, said Dr. David Alligood, who was on call that night. About 40 babies were born that night.
"There was a little bit of blood loss when [Candis] was trying to clamp and cut the cord," Alligood said. "It was cut well. They did a nice job."
Alligood said he often hears of paramedics delivering babies before reaching the hospital, but rarely someone with no medical experience.
James was born a healthy 5 pounds, 12 ounces. Candis was named godfather.
If Candis had not been there, Momoh said, she had no idea what might have happened.
by CNB