A quiet afternoon on Route 73 turned into one of the most memorable calls of a Berlin Borough officer’s career, after he was pulled away from a nearby traffic stop to respond to a family in crisis at a local Wawa.
Patrolman Dominic Hodson was redirected by dispatch to the parking lot, where a woman was going through a sudden and fast-moving medical emergency inside a parked car. Within moments of arriving, Hodson realized there was no time to wait for backup — the situation was unfolding right in front of him.
The woman, later identified as Taylor Durham, had gone into active labor while her husband, Phil Durham, was driving her to a hospital in Voorhees. The couple, from Newfield, barely made it a few minutes down the road before realizing they wouldn’t reach the hospital in time.
Spotting the officer nearby, Phil made a split-second decision to pull over, hoping help would be close enough to matter. It was. Within about three minutes of stopping, the couple’s baby boy was born right there in the vehicle.
Hodson stepped in immediately, lifting the newborn, clearing fluid from his airway, and checking that he was breathing before paramedics could arrive. By his own account, the moment was chaotic and unlike anything his training had fully prepared him for — he had no children of his own and had never assisted in a delivery before.
He later admitted the most difficult part wasn’t the pressure of the moment, but something far more practical: how difficult it was to keep hold of a newborn covered in fluid, even with gloves on.
Once emergency crews arrived and the family was stable, Hodson made a point of shifting credit away from himself, insisting the real strength belonged to the parents.
The Berlin Borough Police Department later gifted the family a package of baby essentials, including a department-branded onesie, to mark the unexpected role their officer played in the child’s birth.
