'I thought I was going to have my baby in the car': Lafourche deputies help expectant mom during Hurricane Ida

Sep. 22—A woman is thanking Lafourche Parish sheriff's deputies for helping her get to a hospital when she was experiencing suspected labor pains during Hurricane Ida.

Kamie Tatum, 22, of Bayou Blue, was staying with a friend in Thibodaux when the monster Category 4 storm made landfall Aug. 29 in south Lafourche.

Tatum, who was nine months pregnant, began to experience what she thought were labor pains as 150 mph winds knocked down trees and power lines and ripped roofs off homes.

Though she would actually give birth a few days later, Tatum said she feared she would have the baby while making a desperate dash toward Thibodaux Regional Medical Center.

"I was having full-on contractions," she said. "I could have sworn up and down the baby was coming. So I got onto La. 1 but there were trees and power lines down. I couldn't find my way, so I just sat in the middle of the highway in my car and cried."

Meanwhile, the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office was in the process of sending a team to help the Kraemer area, which was experiencing flooding, Sheriff Craig Webre said.

"It's Sunday night and Hurricane Ida is still very much a threat," the sheriff said. "Trees are down. Power lines are down. We were starting to lose communications. A couple of minutes before we lost social media I happened to notice on Facebook a cry of help from the Bayou Boeuf community, which couldn't call in because the phone was down. They were saying water was coming in and the levees had overtopped."

Two groups composed of deputies and jail trustees set out on the roads, braving dangerous conditions in the pitch black to reach Kraemer.

"It was very treacherous," Webre said. "There were two separate groups of people working for the same goal and approached Kraemer from two different directions. You could only advance a few yards at a time, and it was so dark that even if the roads were clear you couldn't drive more than 5 to 10 mph. It took us nearly three hours to get to Thibodaux from Lockport."

When deputies saw a large tree blocking the road near Thibodaux's Country Club neighborhood, they encountered Tatum.

"We discovered she was in labor and needed to get to the hospital," Webre said.

By this point, Tatum said, she feared she would have to give birth alone in her car in the middle of a dangerous hurricane.

"I was terrified," she said. "It was toward the end of the storm, but there were still big wind gusts. I was out there on the road by myself. I thought I was going to have my baby in the car by myself because I was in so much pain. As the deputies pushed the tree out of the way, I was in my car screaming and crying because the pain was so bad."

It was then that Lt. Trent Duplantis climbed into the driver's seat and drove Tatum to Thibodaux Regional.

"We discovered she was in labor and needed to get to the hospital," the sheriff said. "So we got an officer to drive her and got them an escort. It seemed like she was in pretty active labor at that time. We then notified the hospital they were coming."

Tatum gave birth Sept. 3 to a 10-pound, 4-ounce boy named Brantley. Both mother and baby are healthy and well, she said.

"If it wasn't for deputy Trent, I don't know what I would've done," she said.

Webre described the situation as a fortunate coincidence.

"This lady would have been in a situation where she could not have reached medical aid on her own," the sheriff said. "There was no way she had the means to get through that tree, and to my knowledge there was no alternative route. To me, this was one of those times in life when coincidence was God's way of remaining anonymous. Thirty men with chain saws, wire cutters and axes battled their way for three hours. Her needs intersected with where we were, and we were able to assist her during a critical time."

— Staff Writer Dan Copp can be reached at 448-7639 or at dan.copp@houmatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanVCopp.

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