Young EMT joins in special delivery

Tim Koenig’s first experience of the miracle of childbirth was an unexpected one.

The 19-year-old firefighter and emergency medical technician with West Valley Volunteer Fire and Rescue was at a friend’s house Sunday when his pager went off, alerting him to a medical call for basic life support at Mountain Villa Apartments.

It wasn’t until Koenig was on his way that he received a text giving him further details: “female, labor in progress.”

“I never thought I’d see that one ever in my EMT career,” Koenig said. “I just thought, ‘Well, I gotta do it.’”

He arrived at the complex and ran up to the third-floor apartment and into the bathroom.

There he found the slightly shocked mother sitting on the floor and a very flustered father holding the newborn — umbilical cord still attached — in one hand while talking to a dispatcher on the phone.

It was the first birth Koenig had ever witnessed any part of.

“As soon as I got there, he handed the baby to me,” Koenig said. “I was just so amazed. I was like ‘Wow, what do I do?’ just trying to control my emotions and that adrenaline. I thought, ‘All right, what do I remember from EMT class. I’ve got to use those skills.’”

Koenig wiped the baby off and wrapped it in a towel and held it as close to the mother as he could while he waited for other people from the fire department to arrive.

“It was only five or six minutes, but it felt like forever,” Koenig said.

When his backup arrived, the baby was determined to be healthy as was the mother. Koenig ended up cutting the cord. He was very happy to confirm that both mother and child were healthy.

“I think it’s just the miracle of a small life and the things that could go wrong that you don’t want to go wrong, but you know what might happen,” Koenig said.

One of his overriding concerns as he responded to the call was what he would do if things weren’t going well when he showed up.

“You don’t have training on the actual birth of a child, they just go through it in the book,” Koenig said. “You can do training on fighting fires, extricating people from vehicles, bandaging, you can do splinting. You can’t simulate the birth of a child. It’s just different when it’s a newborn life and a mother right there and you don’t have training in that.”

Sarah Broussard-Kelly, a more experienced EMT with a medical background, lauded Koenig’s efforts both at the scene and in his general duties with the department.

“Tim, all in all, is a great character and a good asset to our department,” Broussard-Kelly said. “He just kept his cool and did what needed to be done, and then after it was all said and done he was still very interested in learning about all of it. Tim is always rock-solid when we go out on medical calls.”

Although Koenig may not have had much training in childbirth, medical work runs in his family. His mother, Karen, is a neonatal nurse at the Kalispell Regional Medical Center. Both of his sisters are in the process of earning medical degrees.

He also has an older brother, serving in the Peace Corps in Madagascar, as well as an 8-year-old brother.

Koenig is taking general studies at Flathead Valley Community College but said he “may go into nursing now.”

“I have a passion for helping people,” Koenig said.

That passion started early. Koenig is coming into his third year with the fire department after joining during his junior year at Glacier High School.

“I think my friends thought it was pretty cool,” Koenig said. “If I got a call during school I could sometimes go. They always asked me what it was and liked to hear stories.”

He said their interest turned to disbelief when he took an EMT course during the spring of his senior year.

“They thought I was crazy because it was so much work,” Koenig said.

But it is work Koenig enjoys and intends to continue pursuing.

As for the family Koenig was able to help with their newest addition, he said he would like to visit them again under less stressful circumstances. In particular, he wants to give their newborn child a teddy bear with a West Valley Volunteer Fire and Rescue patch on it.

“I would just like to give them a little gift on behalf of the department,” Koenig said. “That would be cool.”

Reporter Jesse Davis may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at jdavis@dailyinterlake.com.