Sheriff’s Community Services Officer Helps Deliver Own Grandchild

Sheriff's CSO Scott Robbins' new granddaughter Katelyn Noel demonstrates with her tiny arm how fast she can be when she sets her mind to it. She was delivered in a quick and early birth by Robbins and his wife Friday night at home.Had any excitement around the house lately? Whatever you did, Sheriff’s Department Community Services Officer Scott Robbins has likely got you beat. He suddenly found himself helping deliver a baby - who happens to be his new granddaughter.

Not only that, but his daughter was standing in a tight shower stall when she delivered the baby girl in Robbins’ El Cajon home.

Luckily, both his daughter and the baby girl are doing great despite the dramatic and frantic unplanned home birth – the baby was born eight days before her due date and came so fast they didn’t have time to get to a hospital.

Robbins said he's been “playing it over and over through my mind.” He is assigned to the County Administration Center where he guides people through security. Robbins, 57, retired as a Sheriff’s reserve deputy and has now worked as a community services officer for nearly 6 years.

It was his 19-year-old daughter Kalene Robbin’s first baby and everyone kept telling them that she would be in labor for hours and probably wouldn’t have it until the next day. So, no one rushed to get her to the hospital when her water broke about 4:30 p.m., he said. In fact, Kalene decided to take a shower.

When she got out of the shower, she was in active labor and was lying on a bed in a fetal position. No one could reach her labor coach. Suddenly, she darted up and ran into the bathroom. Minutes later, she announced that she felt like she had to push. Robbins said his wife told her to hold it in but the baby had other ideas.

In the Sheriff’s Academy, potential deputies watch a video to learn how to deliver a baby, but Robbins says when it came down to it, viewing a video and reality are two different things – especially when it’s your own loved one. His wife Mary remained calm and stepped in to help her daughter and actually caught the baby while Robbins was on the phone with a 9-1-1 operator, whom he calls a “godsend.”

He described what was happening and the 9-1-1 dispatcher was trying to coach them through the birthing. The dispatcher was obviously looking through a manual and trying to keep up with the baby’s fast progress.

“She was going down her list and the baby’s two steps ahead of her,” Robbins says. “Then the baby just came out in my wife’s arms . . .  As soon as the baby came out, she started crying, which is a good sign.”

The paramedics arrived moments after the 7 p.m. birth and everyone was crowded in the small shower area trying to walk the mother and baby out and onto a bed so they could do their assessment.

Once they were out, the baby’s father, Vinnie Barteloni, was able to cut the umbilical cord. Beautiful baby Katelyn Noel was born at 6 pounds, 15 ounces. Both mom and baby have been discharged from the hospital and are home now.

Robbins says when it was all happening he was fearful of a complication such as a breach or umbilical cord around the baby’s neck. He was also nervous his daughter, who stood through the entire ordeal, could lose her strength to stand. As a father, you tend to think your daughters are fragile, he says, but after this, he now knows that his daughter is anything but.

“I know she’s going to be a great mother,” he said. Katelyn is Robbins’ second grandchild and says her tiny features favor his future son-in-law. “She’s very quiet now, a very good baby,” he says.

Robbins plans to meet with the Heartland Fire dispatcher who helped guide them through the sudden delivery and see if he can get a recording of his frantic call. The experience was the most amazing thing he has been part of since the decidedly less dramatic birth of his own three children, who were all born in a hospital.

Sheriff's CSO Scott Robbins