Officer Leaves Her Station to Make a 7 1/2-Pound Delivery

Los Angeles Police Officer Debbie Nichols was at the West Valley police station’s front desk about 3:30 p.m. Thursday when someone ran in and said a 20-year-old woman was about to have a baby in a van outside.

The woman, Caitlin Pulfkamp of Canoga Park, was en route to a hospital when she began giving birth, said Nichols, who ran outside to assist.

Nichols delivered Pulfkamp’s 7-pound, 8-ounce baby girl in the back of the van.

Pulfkamp and a woman friend “stopped at the police station when they realized they weren’t going to make it,” Nichols said. “She was close. It was a good thing they stopped.”

Paramedics arrived and took the mother and child to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Woodland Hills.

Both the mother and daughter, Fiona, were resting and in good condition Thursday night, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Nichols said her training for delivering a baby consisted of a film she watched at the Police Academy and having a baby herself.

“Luckily, I had had my own baby a year and half ago so I knew about the breathing,” she said. “I was a little bit familiar with it all.”

Nichols said she was “a little shaky afterwards, but excited.”

“It’s a change from what I usually do, going out in the streets, arresting people,” she said. “It was a nice change.”