Mother Goes into Labor at Bass Pro Shop’s Wonders of Wildlife, Delivers Baby at the Aquarium

A mother-to-be had a memorable visit to Bass Pro’s Wonders of Wildlife Museum in Missouri Wednesday, when she went into labor near the fish tanks. She and the father successfully delivered their baby right there at the aquarium as an EMS dispatcher walked them through the process over the phone, according to Ozarks First News.

“These parties were calm and very helpful,” said Eli Snider, the Senior Emergency Medical Director for Mercy EMS, who was on the line coaching the parents through the birth. “They were willing to do what you asked them to do.”

Snider told the local news outlet that he was on the phone with the family within a minute of when 911 was called. He said the whole delivery took less than five minutes, and that everything had gone smoothly by the time an ambulance arrived to take the mother and her newborn to a nearby hospital. 

“I’d say a total of four minutes went by before the baby was born — about seven minutes before an ambulance arrived,” said Snider. He added that it was one of the only times he’s handled a delivery entirely by phone. “It’s a great feeling to help someone bring life into this world.”

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Billed as “the largest immersive wildlife attraction in the world,” Johnny Morris’ Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium is located next door to Bass Pro Shops’ flagship store in Springfield. The Wonders of Wildlife campus spans 350,000 square feet and is bigger than the Smithsonian Natural History Museum exhibit. It houses more than 35,000 live animals, with more than 800 different species of fish and wildlife represented. 

It’s unclear if any Wonders of Wildlife employees were immersed in the delivery of the newborn mammal on Wednesday. Bass Pro Shops did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Outdoor Life.