Orange County father helps deliver baby at home

Associated Press

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 | 8:45 p.m.

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. — The nephew of a Major League ballplayer helped an Orange County man deliver the catch of a lifetime — his own daughter.

Keith and Katherine Arthur were in the driveway of their Laguna Niguel home Wednesday morning, preparing to drive to the hospital, when her water broke, said Steve Concialdi of the Orange County Fire Authority.

Asked if they should continue to the hospital, Katherine, 29, told her husband, "We aren't going anywhere," Concialdi said.

The couple went back in the home, where she lay on the bathroom floor with blankets and pillows while he called 911.

Dispatcher Brodie Lefebvre took the call shortly after 9:30 a.m. A father of eight, including two adopted children from the Congo, he talked Arthur through the delivery.

On the 911 recording, he is heard directing Arthur to exert gentle pressure as the baby's head crowns.

Moments later, Arthur says excitedly: "I have the baby! I have the baby!"

"Great, good job," Lefebvre says. "Great. Boy or girl?"

"It's a girl. OK. OK. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh."

The baby can be heard crying. Lefebvre directs him to wrap the child to keep her warm and to place her on his wife's chest.

When paramedics arrived minutes later, Arthur was holding Colette, the couple's fourth child.

"He was extremely calm and did exactly what I told him to do," Lefebvre, 39, told the Orange County Register. "I was able to be there with him and draw on my own experience as a father in the delivery room and keep him calm."

Lefebvre happens to be the nephew of Jim Lefebvre, who was 1965 National League rookie of the year with the Dodgers.

Arthur was a Little League catcher, Concialdi said.

"He made one of the best catches of his life by catching the baby," Concialdi said.