CT Firefighter Delivers Baby on First Overnight Shift

Sunday was a quiet night for first responders at the Guilford Fire Department.

Ashley Vargoshe, a medic and firefighter who is one of the department’s newest recruits, was wrapping up her first full 24-hour shift, which she said had been mostly standard.

Then, just before 5:30 a.m. Monday, that not-ever-unexpected call came in.

Within minutes, Vargoshe found herself in the home of a Guilford family, delivering a healthy baby boy.

The family could not be reached for comment.

It’s not uncommon for paramedics to respond to maternity-related calls, according to Guilford fire Capt. Brian Manware.

The Guilford department receives a “handful” of them, he said.

But because it’s preferable to have a child in a hospital, baby deliveries are less common, Manware said.

It’s only when getting to a hospital is not a viable option that paramedics perform the delivery, and Monday marked the first on-scene delivery Manware could remember in a long time, he said.

“We knew as soon as the dispatchers sent us there that this was going to happen at the house. We were not going to be making it to the hospital,” Manware said. “The mother was crowning when we arrived.”

And it was Vargoshe, one of the department’s newest recruits, who got to handle the delivery.

The experience came as a surprise for Vargoshe.

“It was really exciting,” she said. “I thought we were just going to do a couple fire alarms.”

Vargoshe also happens to be the second woman to serve the GFD full-time since it became a career department in 2002, Manware said.

While Vargoshe had worked and volunteered as an emergency responder elsewhere before coming to Guilford, Monday was the first time she delivered a baby, she said.

Several other team members responded to the scene, including fire Capt. Chris Gode, firefighter and EMT Mike Perez, firefighter and medic Chris Jump, firefighter and medic Sean Marren and 911 telecommunicator Brandon Fazzino, according to a post on the department’s Facebook page.

For first responders, delivering a baby can mark a bright spot in a job filled with calls about fires, illnesses and other emergencies.

“We like to look at these as one of the positive calls that we get to go to,” Manware said. “This was one of those good times.”

The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic made that positive element all the more noticeable.

“There’s been a lot of sick people around, so it was kinda nice to do a job that was a joyful experience instead of our usual 911 emergencies,” Vargoshe said.

Despite the challenges, Vargoshe described her position with the Guilford Fire Department as her “dream job.”

Raised in Madison, Vargoshe has long admired the department, she said. She also loves that, as a firefighter and paramedic, she gets to make a difference in people’s lives, she said.

“It’s very rewarding. It’s exciting. You get to do new things every single day,” she said. “You get to help a lot of people and everyone’s always happy to see the fire department.”

The department announced that it had hired Vargoshe, along with another recruit, Daniel Post, at the beginning of the month, according to a post online.

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