OCEANSIDE, Calif. (KGTV) – Kevin Rankin is a firefighter-paramedic with the Oceanside Fire Department.
“Usually, we show up to the worst times of people's lives,” Rankin said.
Recently, he’s gotten a nickname within Fire Station 3 and the Department.
“I've recently showed up on calls and at the grocery store, and everybody's calling me the Stork,” Rankin said.
Rankin said something happened about a month ago that gave birth to his new nickname.
“But when you're delivering a child, it's a game changer,” Rankin said.
His nickname, Stork, came after he helped a new mom deliver her baby.
“Once we drove to the hospital, everything was going smooth. As soon as we got to the hospital doors, that's when she started to deliver the baby. So, we all got to work, baby turned out perfect, gave it to mom, everything went smoothly,” Rankin said.
It was a potentially stressful situation that went off without a hitch. However, it wasn’t Rankin’s first time doing that on a call.
“Not my first time, my 4th time,” Rankin said.
He told ABC 10News it’s his fourth delivery since December 2022.
“This being probably the best call out there. It's a lot more peaceful in your mind because you're like, OK, hey, all we got to do is deliver the baby make sure baby's OK, make sure mom's OK, and it's honestly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,” Rankin said.
The department tells me all of the babies and their moms are okay.
Rankin credited his training from the department for being cool under the pressure of these calls.
“We have to be up on our skills on not only fires and traffic accidents, but medical aids, heart attacks, strokes, and delivering babies,” Battalion Chief Wes McGee with Oceanside Fire Department said. “So, it just goes to show that our training that we're completing here in the city of Oceanside is working.”
Now that Rankin has worked these kinds of calls and helped deliver babies on the job, he said he’s more than prepared for when it comes to his own child’s birth.
“I'm excited for that. But, I can wait a little bit, wait a little bit,” Rankin said.
