Mom, newborn meet NC 911 operator who was there for them during home delivery (2025)

Chatham County 911 operator Lorie Teague beamed Friday as Sarah Gianni walked into the communications center and carefully placed a 14-day-old newborn in Teague’s arms.

As Teague rubbed the baby’s foot and chatted with Gianni, Daisy, drifted to sleep, her head leaning into Teague’s elbow.

“It’s been a while since I held a baby,” Teague, the mother of a seven-year-old, said at a Friday press event.

It was a very different scene two weeks earlier. Gianni, 36, started having contractions around 6 a.m. at her Pittsboro home. She texted her mother, who had been staying with the family, that it was time, and called her husband Justin, who had left for work in Apex.

Corinne Townsend buckled her grandchildren Thomas, 4, and Adelaide, 2, into their car seats, as Gianni laid a shower curtain on the car’s front seat for the ride to the hospital.

When her water broke, Gianni and her mother decided to “hunker back down” instead, and wait for the ambulance.

Baby arrives before the ambulance

Teague, 48, was on the job, about to break for breakfast, when the call came in.

She began talking Gianni through the birth and helped Townsend stay calm while they delivered an 8-pound, 1-ounce baby girl.

She did scream a couple of times, Gianni said.

“I had mentally prepared for no meds or anything, and it’s just pain with a purpose and you’ve got to surrender to what your body’s doing and just ride the wave,” she said. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”

As the baby’s head crested, Gianni gave a push. Daisy was born at 6:56 a.m. Her husband arrived in time for the trip to the hospital.

She knew it would be OK when Daisy started crying, Gianni said. This was her shortest delivery. Adelaide was born in less than two hours, she said; Thomas took a little longer.

Teague did a good job talking them through it, she said.

“I could tell it calmed my mom. I wasn’t quite paying attention,” Gianni said. “Lorie’s voice was very reassuring that all was well and ambulance was coming and all was taken care of.”

“It was a perfect delivery,” Teague said. “It was not as difficult for me as it was for you.”

“I just get to spoil her. I love it,” she said before handing Daisy back to her mom.

Planning to meet her helper

After returning home, Gianni reached out to Chatham County for the 911 recording. She had done the same thing when her husband helped deliver Adelaide and wanted to preserve the memories, she said.

That’s when county staff asked if she wanted to meet Teague. The meeting grew from there, she said.

“I’ve always had a soft spot for EMS,” added Gianni, who took an EMS course before going to college. “To put the face to the voice was good, and to kind of close the loop.”

Daisy is the second baby she has helped deliver, said Teague, who worked with the Pittsboro Police Department and as a paramedic before joining the 911 center several years ago.

That delivery was a little more complicated, because she had to talk the dad through a ruptured umbilical cord, she added.

People skills and a chance to help

Chatham County has 27 911 telecommunicators, most of whom work during the day when the call volume can be busier, said Adam Gaines, assistant communications director.

The work can be especially hard, because people regularly call you on the worst days of their lives, but “it’s in your blood, your call to service,” said Teague, who also volunteers with the Silk Hope Fire Department. It gets easier as you talk with people, and if you start with some people skills, she said.

“I really enjoy it. I really do,” Teague said. “It’s something that’s hard to do, because I work in a county that I live in, so I know some of the callers, some are my family. ... to know that I helped somebody that I know, it’s a good thing. I wouldn’t trade it.”

Especially the special moments, like meeting baby Daisy and her mom. The moment is also memorialized on a “tree of life” painted on the wall of the communications center.

Four pink and blue leaves have been added to it since the center opened 18 months ago, for each baby the team helped to deliver. The red hearts are for when the team helps get CPR to heart patients in time.

“It’s not only just for the babies, but to see those cardiac — the red leaves — and know that those are people who otherwise would not be able to walk out of the hospital and live their lives after the fact,” Teague said.

This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 1:51 PM.