Driving gets speeding ticket for rushing wife to hospital. baby born 6 minutes later

LONDONDERRY, N.H. -- Should a woman in labor receive a speeding ticket for rushing to the hospital?

That's what a judge and jury could decide Monday morning as they're scheduled to hear the case of a Londonderry couple ticketed by a state trooper while speeding on their way to the hospital.

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In a 911 call of the incident on Sept. 18, Angela Coughlin could be heard screaming in the background -- she said she was both in pain and terrified because her baby was about to be born in the car.

John Coughlin said there was no traffic on the road, and no time to stop, even for the trooper trying to pull him over.

"We hit the 293 split and my water broke," said Angela Coughlin. "He was coming out."

John Coughlin said he didn't realize how fast he was going when a trooper tried to pull him over. He called 911 hoping they could tell the officer what was happening inside the car.

"I'm being pulled over by a cop but my wife's in labor," he said during the call. "Her water just broke, I'm just on my way to the hospital."

The dispatcher told the trooper that Angela was in labor and the trooper turned the pursuit into an escort to the hospital.

Baby Kyle was born 6 minutes after reaching the hospital. Outside, the trooper was waiting with a speeding ticket.

"He said two things, 'Good news, congratulations on your son, and bad news, I'll see you in court,'" Coughlin said.

http://www.wmur.com/r/26359485/detail.html

The escort was RIGHT.

Goddamn.

He might think it is deserted but will he use that as a defense when he slams into someone else? Like it was said down thread...pay the ticket or go to court.

You really think the Dad-to-be was driving recklessly in this case?

Police, firefighters and ambulance drivers exceed speed limits all the time, mostly cause they're dealing with emergency situations...like this one was.

And yes, I think he may have been driving recklessly. 102 in a 55 in an unauthorized vehicle without lights and sirens? Was it an emergency situation? Yes. Did he deserve a ticket? I don't know. Let the court decide.

i'd sooner give a pass to someone who was driving fast just for fun and actually paying attention than to someone who is talking on the phone while speeding and dealing with childbirth. humans are not natural multi-taskers. chances are very slim that this man was very focused on the road.

My hubby rushed me to the hospital. My daughter was in my arms 17 minutes later.

Really, it can happen that fast. The ticket is just evil.

n/t

LEO's looking the other way will simply not be tolerated.


That is how the powers that be see it.

intersections all the time. He should get a good lawyer and fight this.

were deserted. Of course, my son was born 12 hours later. Pay the ticket and be happy everything worked out ok. Alternately, go to traffic court and plead your case.

My SIL said my bro could hardly talk "baby baby" and pointed at her. The cop escorted them to the hospital and everything turned out ok. This ticket is so lame.

had good cause and the trooper did what he should have done--gave them an escort to clear the road in front.

If so, then this cop is an asshat.

Either that, or he's just a plain asswipe. Around here (DE) you notice a whole bunch more activity at the end of the month and end of the year. Everyplace we went was thick with cops over the holiday break. We figured they would have to work extra hard to fill their EOM quotas since the college kids had all left town.

He had 18 minutes to get from his home to the operating room because a heart had just arrived and the patient's chest was open. It was 2:30 in the morning with very light traffic. Court sustained the conviction on the law, not common sense. The law allows only the police, fire, and emergency vehicles to drive over the speed limit. You are allowed to speed for a few seconds to pass another vehicle and return to the lane. And of course, the military. Nobody else for any reason. Not room for necessity or justification.

BTW, the patient survived, but the time lost could have been fatal.

Doesn't make the cop any less of a fuckknob, but hey.

If she was having the kid that quickly, calling an ambulance was the right choice.

Speeders put everybody else on the road in danger. That's what the ticket is all about, not whether or not speed might have been justified by the situation.

The trooper did the right things: provided an escort with siren and lights and issued the ticket. That ticket is a reminder to Pop that he should call an ambulance the next time. It's safer than risking a car seat delivery.

The article said no one was on the road. Black and white is foolish in this situation. Hell, the ambulance would cost them a fortune. An escort is the way to go.

My uncle had a head injury lo these many years ago and the doctor told my grandma that there wasn't time for an ambulance and that he would tell the cops to give them an escort. :o

It turned out okay, but had they waited the few minutes for the ambulance, it might have had a different ending. :o

Waiting for the ambulance was the prudent thing to do.

I live in an area where it is quicker for you to go to the hospital yourself than wait for an ambulance. Many others are in the same situation.

They know how to drive and have medical equipment and emergency sirens to give them priority on the road.

Better risk the kid being born at home with an ambulance coming than risk it being born in a car anyway. Which risk he was taking to start with. And risking an accident by speeding. With a pregnant woman involved in the accident.

The cop has no way of knowing, he just saw a speeding vehicle.

Read the story. When they started out, she was simply in labor and there was no emergency. Even when her water broke, it didn't necessarily mean anything -- with my first kid, my water broke four hours before he was born. It wasn't until she realized the baby was on its way that her husband started to speed.

So don't talk about risk and staying safe at home. That wasn't the situation.

Rather than risk her and the child's life by speeding.

Better to be born at roadside with an ambulance coming than speeding with a pregnant passenger whose water had already broken.

And putting others on the road in danger..

I would have done the same thing but the ticket was justified. Speed limits exist for a reason.

Even if he felt justified had a car pulled out in front of him it is possible he, his wife, or people in the other car could have ended up dead.

In the grand scheme of things it won't really matter in 30 years so pay the ticket and be thankful for the big things (nobody was hurt, wife is fine, baby is healthy, he has good insurance, etc).

Yeah, in many cases, it's simply to collect fines. A long stretch of I-20 here in Atlanta has a 55mph speed limit. Going that slow on I-20, however, could put your life in danger, especially in the far left lanes. The avg speed in the furthest left lane is 80mph + and the police know it.

Finally, I get to tell the story of my birth and birth certificate.

My folks didn't make it to the hospital in time. The (small town) Dr. came outside to the car, saw that I was emerging, and then ran back inside telling the nurses to grab blankets and whatnot. He wrapped me up (December on the northern plains), took me inside, said "It's a boy" and that was the end of it.

Now here's the thing I'm always reminded of when the birthers demand Obama's "original" birth certificate: my original birth certificate says "Place of birth- **** Hospital parking lot." The certified copies I've ordered through the years just say what county the birth was in. I always thought that was pretty cool, I wish the copies mentioned the parking lot too.

:thumbsup:

while I know he was speeding, and broke the law, and the cop had the right to issue the ticket, There was extraordinary circumstances! Surely the cop could have used some judgement here, and given him a warning.

My take is that the cop was an asswipe.

to the hospital. The driver did call 911 to advise them what he was doing and got an escort because of the call. This will come out in court and the ticket will probably be dismissed. The cop was obligated to write the ticket...up to the courts to figure out the rights and wrongs. That is the way the system is supposed to work...and seldom does to our satisfaction.

Can we tone done the hyperbole about cops? The cop did one right thing and one questionable thing. The father did one questionable thing and one right thing. Why is the cop a flaming asshole, jerk, asshat, fuckknob, asswipe according to some of the commenters on this thread, but the father is not?

What if the headline had been, "Three dead after driver strikes pedestrians speeding pregnant wife to hospital". Then y'all would have been, "Why didn't some fucking cop pull him over?"

this one did the right thing. once, at least.

Pay the ticket, frame the receipt, it'll be a great talking piece in Kyle's home one day. By the way, thank the officer for the escort.

Speed limits are not arbitrary restrictions imposed by jobsworths, they're there because breaking them puts people's lives at risk.

I don't for a moment trust the judgement of a man whose wife is in labour as to whether or not it's safe to speed.